Horace Gray

(b. Boston, Mass., 24 March 1828; d. Nahant, Mass., 15 Sept. 1902; interred Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.), associate justice, 1882–1902. Energized by temporary family financial reverses, Gray studied law at Harvard and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in *1851. From 1853 to 1861 he gained visibility as the reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court. In 1864 Gray became the youngest man ever appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court; nine years later he became its *chief justice.

Gray was a prodigious worker and legal scholar. His manner was formal and unyielding, and he did not hesitate to instruct lawyers upon proper behavior and dress. While on the Massachusetts court, Gray employed recent Harvard Law School graduates, recommended by his half brother Professor John Chipman Gray, as his temporary law clerks. (Louis D. Brandeis served in this capacity from 1879 to 1881). Gray continued this practice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and in time it became the rule in the American judiciary.

Massachusetts Senator George F. Hoar, a former classmate, claimed credit for Gray's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the nomination had such considerable support that the candidacy seemed irresistible. President James Garfield died before he could act upon it, and the formal nomination came with his successor, Chester A. Arthur. In Washington, Gray found new stature and also a wife, when on 4 June 1889 he married Jane Matthews, the daughter of his recently deceased colleague, Stanley Matthews.

The Supreme Court that Gray joined in early 1882 was in transition, moving from a steadfast defense of the federal structure to a greater willingness to find new reservoirs of national power in the Constitution (see Federalism). Gray's reputed nationalism rests on Juilliard v. Greenman (1884) and Fong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), in which he saw no constitutional limits on congressional authority, respectively, to issue paper money and to deal with resident aliens. However, despite a reluctance to dissent, he opposed the Court's development of substantive due process as a limitation on state action, its search for avenues of escape from the confines of the Eleventh Amendment, and its commerce clause inroads on state police power. He saw one of his dissents vindicated when Congress passed legislation allowing states to prohibit the shipment of liquor into their jurisdiction.

Of all the decisions in which Gray played a central role, the most notable was United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). Congress had declared Chinese ineligible for naturalization but held that their children born in the United States were citizens. Using Anglo‐American common law as his guide, he interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as commanding that citizenship be made a birthright, no matter the claimant's race or national origin.

Gray's heavy‐handed, drawn‐out opinions that often turned into scholarly historical essays took substantial time to construct, and in his later years his vigor and capacity for work diminished. When a stroke left him partially paralyzed, he resigned contingent on the appointment of his successor. He died before the confirmation of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who at the time held the same judicial post vacated by Gray twenty years earlier.

Bibliography

• Elbridge B. Davis and Harold A. Davis, Mr. Justice Gray: Some Aspects of His Judicial Career, American Bar Association Journal 41 (May 1955): 421–424, 468–471

— John E. Semonche

• Born: Mar. 24, 1828, Boston, Mass.
• Education: Harvard College, A.B., 1845; Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1849
• Previous government service: reporter, Massachusetts Supreme Court, 1853–61; associate justice, 1864–73, Massachusetts Supreme Court; chief justice, Massachusetts Supreme Court, 1873–81
• Appointed by Chester A. Arthur Dec. 19, 1881; replaced Nathan Clifford, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Dec. 20, 1881, by a 51–5 vote; served until Sept. 15, 1902
• Died: Sept. 15, 1902, Nahant, Mass.

Horace Gray was a notable legal scholar with a reputation for basing decisions on careful research. He believed in the separation of legal decisions from politics.

Justice Gray's most important opinion for the Supreme Court was in the case of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). He interpreted the 14th Amendment to mean that anyone born in the United States, regardless of race or national origin, had a right to U.S. citizenship. Therefore, Wong Kim Ark, who was born in the United States to immigrant parents from China, had a natural right to citizenship that could not be denied by the government.

See also United States v. Wong Kim Ark

Horace Gray gained prominence as a Massachusetts jurist and a U.S. Supreme Court justice. In his fifty-three-year career as a lawyer and judge, Gray earned a reputation as an expert on legal history and precedent.

Gray was born in the prosperous Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston on March 24, 1828. His grandfather, William Gray, was a prominent merchant and shipowner, and his father, Horace Gray, was a successful manufacturer. His uncle, Francis Calley Gray, gained fame for discovering the original Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony in New England, the first constitution of the colony, which was drawn up by Nathaniel Ward and adopted in 1641.

Gray attended Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1848 he entered Harvard Law School; he received his law degree one year later. After two years of working in various law offices, Gray opened his own firm in Boston, where he practiced law until 1864. In addition to practicing law, Gray worked as reporter and editor of the Massachusetts Reports, a collection of court opinions and commentary on Massachusetts case law.

The position of reporter of the Massachusetts Reports traditionally led to a seat on the state supreme court, and that tradition played out for Gray. In 1864 he was named to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts by Governor John A. Andrew. At age thirty-six, Gray was the youngest appointee in the history of that court.

As a justice, Gray was formal and stern. He required conservative dress in his court, and he lectured lawyers on their conduct. He demanded that attorneys arrive prepared, and he asked frequent questions from the bench. Gray's opinions were thorough and well documented. In 1873 Gray assumed the position of chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

In 1881 President James Garfield was looking for a nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, to replace the ailing justice Nathan Clifford. Garfield was considering Gray and asked for copies of his opinions. Considering such self-promotion unseemly, Gray refused to send anything to Garfield. After Garfield's death in September 1881, Senator George F. Hoar recommended Gray to the new president, Chester A. Arthur, and Arthur nominated Gray as Clifford's replacement.

Gray authored many opinions on important issues of the day, including cases involving industry, immigration, and state-federal relations. One lasting opinion written by Gray involved the power of the federal government to issue paper money. In Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421, 4 S. Ct. 122, 28 L. Ed. 204 (1884), the High Court established that the United States, through Congress, had the power to issue paper money against its own credit during times of peace as well as times of war.

The Juilliard opinion revealed Gray's strong nationalist sentiment, which became a hallmark of Gray's service on the Court. Gray tended to promote the rights of the United States in its own endeavors and in its relations with other countries. He led the Court in upholding a federal law limiting the immigration of Chinese into the United States (Nishimura Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 12 S. Ct. 336, 35 L. Ed. 1146 [1892]). In Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698, 13 S. Ct. 1016, 37 L. Ed. 905 (1893), Gray dismissed the notion that resident aliens could claim the protection of the U.S. Constitution. Gray also wrote the opinion in Hilton v. Guyot, 159 U.S. 113, 16 S. Ct. 139, 40 L. Ed. 95 (1895), in which the Court held that the United States did not have to recognize judgments obtained in France, because France did not recognize judgments obtained in the United States.

Gray never attained the legendary status enjoyed by some Supreme Court justices, perhaps because of his unwillingness to stray beyond the bounds of precedent and author far reaching opinions that change the course of the law.

Gray died September 15, 1902, in Nahant, Massachusetts.

Horace Gray
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office January 9, 1882 – September 15, 1902
Nominated by	Chester A. Arthur
Preceded by	Nathan Clifford
Succeeded by	Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Born	March 24, 1828(1828-03-24) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	September 15, 1902 (aged 74) Nahant, Massachusetts

Horace Gray (March 24, 1828 – September 15, 1902) was an American jurist who ultimately served on the United States Supreme Court. He was an active in public service and a great philanthropist to the City of Boston.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Judicial career 2.1 Supreme Court 3 References 4 Further reading

Early life

Gray was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the prominent Boston Brahmin merchant family of William Gray. He enrolled at Harvard College at the age of 13, graduated four years later and traveled in Europe for a time before returning home following a series of business problems for his family. He studied law at Harvard, although he did not receive a degree. Gray entered the bar in 1851. Gray's home later became the site of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist (Washington, D.C.)

Horace Gray's half-brother, John Chipman Gray went on to become a lawyer and long-time professor at Harvard Law School.

Judicial career

In 1854, he was named Reporter of Decisions for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, a very prestigious appointment for so young a man and one which allowed him to edit numerous volumes of court records and provided for some independent legal writing, all of which earned him a very good reputation as a scholar and legal historian. This reputation made him a natural choice when a vacancy opened up on the Supreme Judicial Court in 1864. At age 36, Gray was youngest appointee in that court's history.

Gray maintained a good reputation on the state supreme court, and became the court's Chief Justice in 1873. While serving as chief justice, Gray hired Louis D. Brandeis as a clerk, becoming the first justice of that court to hire a clerk.

Supreme Court

On 1881, President Chester A. Arthur nominated Gray to a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States; he was confirmed the following day, replacing Nathan Clifford. In 1889, Gray married Jane Matthews, who was the daughter of his former colleague on the court, Thomas Stanley Matthews. As he had been in Massachusetts, Gray was the first Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to hire a law clerk. He used his own funds to pay the clerk's salary, as no government money was appropriated for this purpose at the time.

Justice Horace Gray

Gray served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 24 years, resigning in July, 1902, gravely ill. He was succeeded by a fellow Massachusetts native, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who coincidentally had succeeded Gray on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

Gray was one of the few Supreme Court appointees in the latter half of the 1800s who had not previously been a politician, and he maintained the opinion that law and politics were entirely separate fields. His opinions, both concurring and dissenting, were generally very long and weighted with legal history.

Gray is best known for his decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. This case was heard twice, though only the second hearing resulted in a decision; the justices, feeling that the opinions written had not adequately explained their view of the situation (the case was about the constitutionality of a national income tax), wished to rehear the case. After the first hearing, Gray wrote that he sided with the defendant (Farmer's Loan & Trust), arguing that the tax was indeed constitutional. He was in the minority, however. After the second hearing, Gray changed his stance, joining with the majority in favor of the plaintiff. He chose not to write a dissenting or concurring opinion, in either hearing.

Horace Gray was also the author of the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruling that a child born in United States to foreign parents is automatically a citizen of the United States.

References

• Data drawn in part from the Supreme Court Historical Society and Oyez.

Further reading

• Spector, Robert M. (1968). "Legal Historian on the United States Supreme Court: Justice Horace Gray, Jr., and the Historical Method". American Journal of Legal History 12 (3): 181–210. doi:10.2307/844125. 

Legal offices
Preceded by '	Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 1864 – 1873	Succeeded by '
Preceded by Reuben Atwater Chapman	Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court September 5, 1873 – January 9, 1882	Succeeded by Marcus Morton
Preceded by Nathan Clifford	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States January 9, 1882 – September 15, 1902	Succeeded by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Supreme Court of the United States

The Waite Court Chief Justice: Morrison Remick Waite (1874–1888) 1882–1887: S.F. Miller | S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | Wm. B. Woods | S. Matthews | H. Gray | S. Blatchford 1888: S.F. Miller | S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | S. Matthews | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II The Fuller Court Chief Justice: Melville Weston Fuller (1888–1910) 1888–1889: S.F. Miller | S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | S. Matthews | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II 1890–1891: S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer 1891–1892: S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown 1892–1893: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | L.Q.C. Lamar II | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. 1893: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | S. Blatchford | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | H.E. Jackson 1894–1895: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | H.E. Jackson | E.D. White 1896–1897: S.J. Field | J.M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham 1898–1902: J. M. Harlan | H. Gray | D.J. Brewer | H.B. Brown | Geo. Shiras, Jr. | E.D. White | R.W. Peckham | J. McKenna

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