Samuel Blatchford
Samuel Blatchford ( born March 9, 1820 New York City; † July 7, 1893 in Newport, Rhode Iceland ) was an American jurist who was the last judge on the United States Supreme Court ( U.S. Supreme Court ).
Life
Lawyer
Blatchfords father Richard Milford Blatchford was a lawyer and at times Ambassador to the Holy See. He himself studied after attending the Grammar School at Columbia College, where he graduated in 1837. Between 1839 and 1841 he was private secretary to the then- New York Governor William H. Seward, who was also a U.S. Senator for New York, and U.S. Secretary of State later.
In addition to that, he studied law and entered the law office of his father after the lawyer's approval in the state of New York in 1842 a. In 1854 he settled in New York City and founded the law firm as a partner Blatchford, Seward & Griswold, which still exists today under the name of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, is one of the world's most prestigious law firm. During his local continuous activity until 1867, he gained a reputation especially as an expert in commercial and maritime law. In the meantime, was Blatchford, who was a supporter of Freemasonry, also a trustee of Columbia University.
Federal Judge
1867 Blatchford was U.S. President Andrew Johnson Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District appointed by New York and thus the successor of Samuel Rossiter Betts, who held this office of judge more than forty years.
After eleven years in this office, U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him on March 4, 1878 Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the second judicial district. He was successor to the late Judge Alexander S. Johnson.
Following the resignation of Ward Hunt U.S. President Chester A. Arthur appointed him finally on April 3, 1882 Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Previously, the U.S. Senator from Vermont, George F. Edmunds and former New York Senator Roscoe Conkling U.S. had rejected an appeal Associate Justice. The Office of the Assistant Judge he held until his death, and was then succeeded by Edward Douglass White junior. During his eleven-year activity of the Supreme Court, he wrote 430 court opinions and represented only twice a dissenting opinion.
Blatchford was practically the first lawyer, as a judge on all three levels of the Federal Court ( U.S. District Court, U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court ) worked. Because the court system was still organized differently in his time, was Charles Evans Whittaker the first to at all three levels of the hierarchy of the U.S. federal jurisdiction worked in a row.
Others
Samuel Blatchford was a member of the Federation of the Freemasons. After his death, Blatchford was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Publications
- Reports of cases argued and deterministic mined in the district court of the United States for the southern district of New York, 1855
- Reports of cases in prize, 1866
- Verification of invoices, 1869
Background literature
- In memoriam. Samuel Blatchford, obituary of the United States Supreme Court, 1893