Confederate judge impeached by the US – Tennessee’s West Humphreys

Impeachments of judges and justices don’t really happen all that much in our history. By 1862, only three impeachments had been successful – those of Judge John Pickering (1803), Associate Justice Samuel Chase (1804), and Judge James H. Peck (1830). It was probably with a degree of excitement that the trial of District Judge West H. Humphreys began in the US Senate in 1862.

Established by the Constitution in 1878 and the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Federal judicial system has three tiers – district, circuit, and supreme court. District courts lie (usually) within one state, and the judge for that court usually comes from that state. District courts can only hear cases that deal with federal statutes, the Constitution, or treaties. District court judges are appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and are lifetime appointments. 

 
Many Southern states were divided into more than one district. In Alabama, there was a northern and Southern District. William G. Jones was the judge (appointed by James Buchanan in 1850) of both districts within the state of Alabama. With the creation of the Confederate States of America, Jones resigned his judgeship, effective January 12, 1861, and went on to be appointed a district judge for the Confederate States by Jefferson Davis, serving until the end of the war. It seems that most of the Federal district judges resigned and were later appointed to the same post in the Confederate States by Jefferson Davis: Daniel Ringo (Arkansas); McQueen McIntosh (Florida); John C. Nicoll (Georgia); Theodore H. McCaleb and Henry Boyce (Louisiana – resigned US, neither served as Confederate judges); Samuel J. Gholson (Mississippi); Asa Biggs (North Carolina); Andrew G. Magrath (South Carolina); and James D. Halyburton and John W. Brockenbrough (Virginia). However, Judge William Marvin, Southern District of Florida, and Judge Thomas H. Duval, Texas, did not resign and continued to serve as Federal judges throughout the war years. 

 
Judge West H. Humphreys, Federal judge for both districts in Tennessee, also became a Confederate judge for the state of Tennessee. But it appears that Humphreys missed an important step. He did not actually resign his former job, and the Federal government impeached and convicted him for it.

Humphreys was born in Montgomery County, Tennessee in 1806. His father was a state judge. He attended Transylvania University and then read law. Humphreys was in private practice in Clarksville and Somerville from 1828 until 1839. In 1834, he was a member of the state constitutional convention. He was a member of the General Assembly from 1835 to 1838, Attorney General of Tennessee 1839 to 1851, and reporter for the Tennessee Supreme Court those same years. In 1853, Humphreys was nominated to fill the judge’s seat for the United States District Court for Tennessee by President Franklin Pierce.

On July 25, 1861, Jefferson Davis submitted to the Confederate senate the names of two men to be judges, including West H. Humphreys. Nothing really seems to come of Davis’s nomination of Humphreys. On March 26, 1862, Thomas Bragg again submitted the name of Humphreys to Jefferson Davis to be a district court judge. It appears that the senate confirmed Humphreys on March 29.

Word made its way back to Washington, D.C., that Humphreys had taken the position of a Confederate District Judge. The US House impeached Humphreys and appointed managers on May 7, 1862, to go to the Senate to try Humphreys for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

On May 8, 1862, the notification of Humphrey’s impeachment reached the US Senate. The Senate convened as a jury on May 22, with Vice President Hannibal Hamlin presiding. There were seven articles of impeachment. Those articles included public speaking “to incite revolt and rebellion” in Nashville, Tennessee, December 29, 1860; that in early 1861 Humphreys “together with other evil-minded persons within said State, openly and unlawfully support, advocate, and agree to an act commonly called an ordinance of secession”; in 1862 he “unlawfully, and in conjunction with other persons, organized armed rebellion against the United States and levy war against them”; disregarded his duties as a Federal judge by refusing to hold district court; deprived Andrew Johnson and John Catron of their property; and had William G. “Parson” Brownlow arrested. The Secretary then issued a summons that Humphreys appear before the Senate to answer these charges on June 9. The Senate then moved to postpone the trial until June 26. With that, the court adjourned.

The sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, George T. Brown, made his way to Nashville, but was unable to find Humphreys. (Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1862) The Senate published ads in three Washington, D.C., and one Nashville, Tennessee, newspapers, summoning Humphreys to the US Senate. The House managers presented their case, including a list of witnesses that included Jacob McGavock, William H. Polk, Horace Maynard, and William G. Brownlow. The witnesses were examined, and the articles of impeachment were gone through. Humphreys never made an appearance, and the Senate impeached him. Humphreys was removed from office and was disqualified from ever holding an office under the United States again.

Information on Humphreys for the remainder of the war is kind of sparse. There are a few mentions in Robinson’s Justice in Grey regarding a couple of cases, but Humphreys, like most Confederate judicial personnel, slips out of the pages of history. We do know that Humphreys was indicted for conspiracy against the government of the United States. Humphreys was able to resume his law practice in 1866, and continued to practice until 1882. He died on October 16, 1882, and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee.

The Missing Confederate Supreme Court

   “The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.” (Article III, Section 1).

   The permanent Confederate constitution, like the United States Constitution, calls for the creation of a supreme court. The wording in the three sections dealing with the powers of the supreme court contains almost identical language. Yet the Confederacy never actually established a Supreme Court. The Provisional Confederate Congress passed a statute stating that the Supreme Court should temporarily consist of a quorum of all sitting Confederate district judges (Article III, section 1.) Yet on July 31, 1861, a law passed by the Provisional Confederate Congress stated the Supreme Court would not meet until properly organized. Writing in 1963, Charles R. Lee, Jr. noted that the reasoning behind this was due to the distance between the various districts.[1]

   When the first session of the regular Confederate Congress met in February 1862, President Davis submitted an address, in which he called “the attention of Congress to the duty of organizing a Supreme Court of the Confederate States, in accordance with the mandate of the Constitution.”[2] The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Thomas J. Semmes, Louisiana, presented a bill to organize the Supreme Court on March 11. The court would consist of a chief justice and three associate justices.[3] On March 26, 1862, this one sentence appeared in the congressional record: “The bill to organize a Supreme Court was postponed indefinitely.”[4] (A bill to organize the Supreme Court in the Confederate House was not entered until April 10, 1862.)

   So what took place over those fifteen days that led to the indefinite postponement of the organization of the supreme court? That’s not really clear. Information on the Confederate Congress and Confederate Senators and Representatives is extremely poor. On September 26, 1862, Senator Benjamin Hill, Georgia, now chairman of the Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill to again organize a Supreme Court. Hill felt a Supreme Court was a necessity and alluded to a “Circuit Court Judge in Georgia [who] had decided against the constitutionality of the conscript law and was discharging conscripts.” Hill “feared that in the absence of the Supreme Court difficulties would arise for which there would be no remedy. The government, without this court was a lame and limping affair. The Supreme Court was as much demanded by the Constitution as the Congress or the President.” By a vote of 10 to 9, the Senate agreed to take up the vote.[5]   

   Again in January 1863, the discussion came up about the court. This time, the recorded debate adds to our knowledge of the thinking of the day. Semmes and Hill were in favor of the bill to establish the court. “We ought now to perfect the Government,” Semmes believed. Hill read from reports from the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury “to show the urgent necessity of the organization of the court.” Senator Henry Burnett, Kentucky, was opposed, believing that the lack of a court had no negative impact on the population nor on foreign relations. Burnett was afraid that the establishment of a Supreme Court “would create sinecures for judges that he did not want.” Senator James Phelan, Mississippi, could see no need in the past two years, nor could he envision any cases within the next ten years, that would justify the need for a Supreme Court. For the next couple of days, the senators haggled over the number of justices, and salaries. Senator Louis Wigfall of Texas thought the bill unconstitutional, as it gave the Supreme Court power over the lower courts.[6]

   The debate lasted into February. Senator Robert W. Barnwell, South Carolina, was opposed to certain aspects of the bill. “It was because the old Supreme Court, no doubt conscientiously, construed the law so as to cover up all the legislation of the country that the people of the North, educated in the belief of the indissolubility of the Government and the supremacy of the Supreme Court, felt themselves authorized to do what they are now attempting… It was a monstrous doctrine that the Supreme Court could have appellate jurisdiction over the State courts.” Senator Clement Clay introduced an amendment to repeal the review provision of the bill, which was approved 16-6. The Confederate Senate then approved the bill to establish the court, 14-8.[7] The bill went to the Confederate House, where it never passed. Thus failed the best attempt to pass a bill to establish a Confederate Supreme Court.

   So what do scholars, the few who have addressed the issue, say in regards to the Confederate Supreme Court? Sidney Brummer argues that since the state courts tended to uphold most Confederate measures, there was not much of a need or pressure to create a Supreme Court.[8] William Robinson, Jr., tends to side with Brummer.[9] Charles E. George believes that had a Confederate Supreme Court been organized, the states would have ignored it, believing that the state supreme courts were indeed supreme.[10] However, David Currie contends that like the Federal government, the Confederate government needed a uniform interpretation of law. The Confederacy “similarly cried out for Supreme Court review of state court decisions respecting Confederate law.”[11] Wilfred Yearns believed that members of Congress were afraid of Jefferson Davis’s court picks. Alabama delegates were afraid the former US Associate Justice John A. Campbell would be appointed to the court. “enemies of the Davis administration feared that Davis would pack the Supreme Court with his ‘pets’ and particularly that Judah P. Benjamin would become Chief Justice,” Yearns wrote.[12]

   All sides in the debate are probably correct. The Conscription Act and the suspension of the writ of Habitus Corpus would be prime examples. That is fodder for another blog post…

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[1] Lee, The Confederate Constitutions, 109.

[2] The Messages and Papers of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, 1:192.

[3] Southern Historical Society Papers, [SHSP] 44:137-8

[4] SHSP, 45:6.

[5] SHSP, 46:245, 246.

[6] SHSP, 47:197-201, 206-211, 223-225.

[7] SHSP 48:39, 324.

[8] “The Judicial Interpretation of the Confederate Constitution,” 133.

[9] Justice in Grey, 436.

[10] “The Supreme Court of the Confederate States of America,” 599.

[11] “Through the Looking-Glass: The Confederate Constitution in Congress, 1861-1865,” 1376.

[12] The Confederate Congress, 249, n.68, 69.

Court packing, 1860s style

   In February 1861, two pro-secession state senators from western North Carolina, Marcus Erwin and W. W. Avery, issued an address to the people of their districts. The address lamented the election of the “black Republicans,” and with the secession of Southern states, the loss of seats (and power) in the halls of Congress for the Southern slave-owning states that remained. Then, the pair turned their attention to courts: “The Supreme Court is the only refuge left us. But that will not avail us. Because that court construed the Constitution so as to protect the rights and property of southern men, the Black Republicans have cursed it, and vowed to destroy its present organization. Mr. Seward, who has accepted the principal post in Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, and who will be the governing and directing spirit of his administration, has declared that the Supreme Court must be reconstructed on account of its decision in favor of the South, in the Dred Scott case. That means that the first measure of Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be to pass a law organizing the court in such a way as to enable them to appoint Black Republican judges enough to control the court against the South, and to reverse all its previous decisions in favor of the South.”[1]

   The important person in the debate was William H. Seward. A former two-term New York Governor, Seward was serving his second term as a United States Senator when the Dred Scott v. Sandford case was decided upon in 1857. In March 1858, Seward, in a speech in the Senate, decried the court’s decision. The court could reverse its decision, or Congress could “reorganize the Court, and thus reform its political sentiments and practices, and bring them into harmony with the Constitution and the laws of nature.”[2] President Buchanan was angry, and Chief Justice Roger Taney later told a friend that had Seward won the presidency instead of Lincoln, Taney would have refused to administer the oath to the new president.[3] Others agreed with Seward. Zachariah Chandler of Michigan found the Dred Scott ruling “monstrous.” The Republican party meant to “annul the Dred Scott decision, the stump speech of Taney…” and reorganize the Supreme Court.[4]

   Many in Washington, D.C., were alarmed by Seward’s proclamation. D.Q.C. Lamar, serving the people of Mississippi in the U.S. House, stated he heard Seward’s speech in person. Lamar believed that once the Republicans assumed power, the Supreme Court would be remodeled “in order that its decisions should no longer confirm to us what we believe to be the constitutional rights of the South.” As Seward spoke, as he “uttered this atrocious sentiment, his form seemed to dilate, his pale, thin face, furrowed by the lines of thought and evil passions, kindled with malignant triumph, and his eye slowed and glared upon southern Senators as though the fires of hell were burning in his heart.”[5]  Others in Congress spoke out in favor of the court, denouncing the Republicans. These included senators Jefferson Davis-Mississippi; Judah P. Benjamin-Louisiana; Stephen Douglas-Illinois; James A. Stewart-Maryland; George E. Pugh-Ohio; and, Joseph Lane-Oregon.[6]

   The news of Seward’s proposal to remake the court made its rounds across the South in 1860. It was an election year, and many felt Seward would get the nod for the Republican presidential candidacy. One editor in Louisiana told his readership that Seward had “announced that his party would soon reorganize the Supreme Court in such a manner as to avoid disagreeable decisions…”[7] The Texas Republican considered Seward an “arch Tallyrand” declaring that the Supreme Court had to be reorganized.[8] The Times-Picayune noted in April 1860 that Roscoe Conkling was on the floor of the US House calling for the “reorganization of the Supreme Court,” as “one of the auspicious promises of the Republican victory” in the coming election. [9] In Nashville, Tennessee, the day before the election, one speaker told the crowd that “The North is bent on abolishing slavery by revising the Supreme Court and then reversing the Dred Scott Decision…”[10]

US Supreme Court, ca.1864 (Wikimedia Commons)

   Once the election was over, the Republicans gained the presidency, and a Republican-led coalition controlled the House, while the Democrat’s control of the Senate was five seats less. As states considered secession, the idea of a reorganized court haunted many an editor. “What, then, becomes of this much-vaunted bulwark of Sothern constitutional rights?” a Louisiana editor asked. “The Supreme Court will become an Abolition Court, and will give judicial sanction and authority to whatever oppressions and outrages may be perpetrated upon the South by an Abolition Congress and an Abolition president!”[11] The Republican Banner told its readership that the new administration planned to fill the Supreme Court with “his [Lincoln] creatures, as vacancies may occur from death or otherwise… If vacancies should occur too slowly in the Supreme Court, and he should have a majority in both Houses of Congress, he might even add to its number, so as to give his party a majority…”[12] The Richmond Enquirer noted the same. Citing a speech that Seward gave at the Cooper Institute in New York in November, Seward planned to set the wheels in motion to reconstruct the Supreme Court in short time.[13]

    Associate Justice John McLean died in April 1861, giving Lincoln the opportunity for his first nomination. For those border states still in the Union, there was cause for great alarm. “The vacancy in the supreme court cannot be filled unto the next session of Congress. It is not impossible an effort will be made then to reorganize judicial districts,” the Memphis Daily Argus informed its readers.[14]

   Eventually, Lincoln did appoint five new justices to vacancies, and Congress did, in the summer of 1862, redraw the boundaries of the districts, compressing the five Southern districts into two. In March 1863, Congress went further, creating a tenth district, thus adding a tenth justice to the bench (this seat was abolished in 1869). Two of Lincoln’s nominations, Salmon P. Chase and Samuel F. Miller, were confirmed the same day they were nominated. Noah H. Swayne’s confirmation took three days, Stephen J. Field’s took four days, and David Davis’s confirmation took seven days. In the end, William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln were able to reorganize the Supreme Court in a way that benefited their political party.[15]

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[1] Weekly State Journal,  February 20, 1861.

[2] The Works of William H. Seward, 4:594-95.

[3] Stahr, Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man, 172.

[4] “Acquisition of Cuba. Speech of Hon. Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, in the Senate of the United States, February 17, 1859,” 5.

[5] Congressional Globe, quoted in Bancroff, The Life of William H. Seward, 1:504.

[6] Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, 2:329.

[7]  Sugar Planter January 21, 1860.

[8] The Texas Republican, February 11, 1860.

[9] The Times-Picayune April 26, 1860.

[10] Nashville Union and American, November 4, 1860.

[11] The New Orleans Crescent, November 21, 1860.

[12] Republican Banner, November 27, 1860.

[13] Richmond Enquirer, November 13, 1860.

[14] Memphis Daily Argus, April 4, 1861.

[15]  https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/07/the-first-court-packing-plan/