Samuel F. Phillips
Samuel Field Phillips ( born February 18, 1824 in New York City; † November 18, 1903 in Washington DC) was an American lawyer, civil rights activist, politician, and United States Solicitor General. He was involved in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of principle of the upper Stern Court of the United States.
Life
Samuel F. Phillips was the son of the mathematician James Phillips in New York to the world. Two years after his birth, his father was appointed the first professor of mathematics at the newly founded University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the family moved to Chapel Hill. Later he attended the university where his father taught, as a student and received his master's degree in law in 1844. After his studies, Phillips worked as a lawyer until 1852 he was the first time choose for the United States Whig Party in the Parliament of North Carolina ( North Carolina General Assembly). From 1854 to 1859 he taught at the Law School of the University at Chapel Hill.
As a politician, he was an opponent of secession in the American Civil War, participated in the first meeting Reconstruction and fought for the civil rights of African-American population. Finally, he joined the Republican Party, and he was often referred to as Scalawag. For about five years, Phillips again devoted practice as a lawyer. He moved with his family to Raleigh, where he worked as a court stenographer at the Supreme court in the State.
In 1871 he was appointed to a second term in the House of Representatives from North Carolina. In November of the following year he was appointed by U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant to the second Solicitor General of the United States. He held twelve years this office. Only in May 1885, he was replaced by John Goode. For the purpose of the official version in 1872, the move to Washington.
In 1896 he defended Homer Plessy in Plessy v. Ferguson case became famous. He described the principle of separate but equal as nothing more than a denigration of African Americans because of their skin color. As Solicitor General, he sat down, inter alia, for the maintenance of the guilty verdict against several members of the Ku Klux Klan who had attacked a black man who wanted to participate in the elections to Congress.
By 1900 Phillips retired from professional practice. Three years later, he died in Washington. His remains lie buried in Chapel Hill.