Howell Edmunds Jackson

(b. Paris, Tenn., 8 Apr. 1832; d. Nashville, Tenn., 8 Aug. 1895; interred Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Nashville), associate justice, 1893–1895. The first native Tennessean to serve on the United States Supreme Court, Howell E. Jackson was, by all accounts, a serious child and an excellent student, and at the age of eighteen he graduated from West Tennessee College. After several years of tutoring and a year of law school at Cumberland University, Jackson embarked on a legal career. In 1858 he formed the partnership of Currin and Jackson in Memphis. The partnership was short lived, however, owing to Tennessee's secession from the Union in 1861. Personally opposed to secession, Jackson nevertheless accepted an official position with the Confederate government. After the Civil War, Jackson returned to Memphis and resumed the practice of law in partnership with B. M. Estes. In 1874 he removed to Jackson, Tennessee, where he established a practice that regularly brought him before the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Although a Whig before the Civil War, Jackson joined the Democratic party and in 1875 secured a judgeship on the provisional Court of Arbitration for West Tennessee. When this tribunal was abolished two years later, Jackson sought unsuccessfully to win a seat on the Tennessee Supreme Court. He then shifted his energies to the state legislature, and in 1880 he was elected to the state House of Representatives. Within a matter of months Jackson ran successfully for the United States Senate.

In Washington, Jackson earned a reputation as one of the hardest‐working members of Congress. More important in terms of his judicial future, Jackson developed close friendships with President Grover Cleveland and with Republican Senate colleague Benjamin Harrison, who succeeded Cleveland as president in 1889. In 1887 Jackson left the Senate to take a position on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, at the request of President Cleveland. Seven years later, despite the difference in their party affiliations, President Harrison nominated Jackson to the United States Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed him without opposition.

Howell Jackson took his seat on the Supreme Court on 4 March 1893. Because of failing health, his tenure on the Court was only two and a half years and illness prevented him from participating in many important constitutional decisions. He did, however, manage to participate in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company (1895), in which the Court (dividing 5 to 4) struck down a federal income tax law, notwithstanding Jackson's vigorous dissenting opinion. In Jackson's view, the Court's decision in Pollock was “the most disastrous blow ever struck at the constitutional power of Congress” (p. 704). Congress regained its power to levy an income tax when the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified in 1913.

When the Supreme Court finished its term in late spring of 1895, a seriously ill Justice Jackson returned to his home at West Meade, just outside Nashville. There he passed away on 8 August 1895.

— John M. Scheb II

• Born: Apr. 8, 1832, Paris, Tenn.
• Education: West Tennessee College, B.A., 1849; University of Virginia, 1851–52; Cumberland University, 1856
• Previous government service: judge, Court of Arbitration for Western Tennessee, 1875–79; Tennessee House of Representatives, 1880; U.S. senator from Tennessee, 1881–86; judge, Sixth Federal Circuit Court, 1886–91; judge, Circuit Court of Appeals, 1891–93
• Appointed by President Benjamin Harrison Feb. 2, 1893; replaced Lucius Q. C. Lamar, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Feb. 18, 1893, by a voice vote; served until Aug. 8, 1895
• Died: Aug. 8, 1895, Nashville, Tenn.

Howell E. Jackson achieved an outstanding record of public service in his home state, Tennessee. He was rewarded in 1881 by election to the U.S. Senate, where he developed a close friendship with a senator from Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, and with President Grover Cleveland. In 1886, Jackson left the Senate to accept President Cleveland's appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1893, Jackson was appointed to the Supreme Court by his old friend from the Senate, President Benjamin Harrison.

Jackson served less than two years on the Court because of poor health. In fact, during this time his illness prevented him from participating in several important decisions of the Court.

Jackson's most notable opinion was his dissent in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. (1895). The Court decided that the 1894 federal income tax law was unconstitutional. Jackson strongly disagreed, and his position was confirmed in 1913 with passage of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which grants power to the federal government to tax incomes “from whatever source derived”

Howell Edmunds Jackson was a U.S. senator, federal judge on the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court justice. Jackson toiled diligently without fanfare for many years before garnering widespread attention for the last case he heard while sitting on the Supreme Court, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601, 15 S. Ct. 912, 39 L. Ed. 1108 (1895).

Jackson was born April 8, 1832, in Paris, Tennessee. He graduated from West Tennessee College in 1849, then studied for a time at the University of Virginia. He read the law with a Tennessee Supreme Court judge for a year, and obtained his law degree from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, in 1856. Thereafter, he practiced law in Jackson and Memphis. Although Jackson opposed Tennessee's secession in the Civil War, he served the Confederacy as a receiver of confiscated property. Following the Civil War, he served for a short time on the Court of Arbitration for West Tennessee, a provisional court helping the regular Tennessee Supreme Court dispose of a backlog of cases caused by the war. He also made an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the state supreme court.

A Whig before the war, Jackson was elected to the Tennessee state legislature as a Democrat in 1880. The following year the legislature assembled to choose a U.S. senator on a joint ballot. No candidate, including the incumbent, could muster enough votes in the divided assembly. After a number of deadlocked days, a Republican legislator cast his vote for Jackson, who had not been a candidate, and Jackson was quickly elected. In the Senate he gained a reputation as a tireless worker. He was nonpartisan in his friendships, becoming close with Democrat president Grover Cleveland and Republican Senate colleague Benjamin Harrison.

Jackson resigned from the Senate in 1886 when President Cleveland appointed him to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and eventually became that court's presiding judge. In 1893 lame-duck president Harrison appointed Jackson to fill a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Harrison appointed Jackson in part because Cleveland was about to become president, and Harrison doubted that any Republican could garner confirmation by the Democratic Senate. Harrison, a former Union general, saw in Jackson, a former member of the Confederate government, not another secessionist southern Democrat but a man committed to serving his entire nation.

In August 1894, Congress imposed a nationwide two percent income tax on all annual incomes in excess of $4,000. The new law, popular in the South and West but despised in the North and East, was quickly challenged as being unconstitutional. Soon, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Tuberculosis struck Jackson, and shortly after the October 1894 session began, his deteriorating health kept him off the bench. He was absent in April 1895 when the Court held in Pollock that part of the new tax law was unconstitutional. The Court was evenly divided on whether the entire law must be declared unconstitutional, and therefore did not express an opinion on the matter. The absence of a firm decision by the justices meant that the courts could expect a flood of litigation from unwilling taxpayers. The Supreme Court quickly granted a rehearing to reexamine the issue.

To break the deadlock, it appeared essential that Justice Jackson either resign so that a new justice could be appointed, or agree to hear the case. Jackson decided to hear the case. At Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller's insistence, he obtained his doctor's permission to travel from Tennessee, where he had been recuperating, to Washington, D.C., to return to the bench.

The case was argued for three days in early May, 1895. Strong passions about the income tax law, widespread speculation about how Jackson would vote, and the drama of the obviously ailing justice made the case one of keen public interest. Reporters speculated that the effort of participating in the hearing might well shorten Jackson's life.

The decision was rendered less than two weeks after oral arguments. Ironically, Jackson's vote was not crucial, because one of his colleagues changed his opinion. Jackson and three other justices voted to uphold the constitutionality of the tax; five justices, including the colleague who had changed his opinion, voted to declare the entire law void. Jackson, too weak to prepare a formal, written opinion, spoke from notes as he announced his dissent in the Supreme Court chamber. Jackson declared that the decision was "the most disastrous blow ever struck at the constitutional power of Congress." An income tax was not resurrected until passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.

After the rehearing in Pollock, Jackson returned to his home outside Nashville. He died less than three months later, on August 8, 1895.

Howell Edmunds Jackson
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office March 4, 1893 – August 8, 1895
Nominated by	Benjamin Harrison
Preceded by	Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
Succeeded by	Rufus Wheeler Peckham

Born	April 8, 1832(1832-04-08) Paris, Tennessee, United States
Died	August 8, 1895 (aged 63) Nashville, Tennessee
Cause of death	Tuberculosis
Resting place	Mount Olivet Cemetery
Residence	Nashville, Tennessee
Education	West Tennessee College, University of Virginia, Cumberland University
Occupation	Lawyer, judge, politician, businessman, racehorse owner/breeder
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	1) Sophia Molloy (d. 1873) 2) Mary Elizabeth Harding
Children	Children with Sophia: Henry, Mary, William H. (1864-1938), Howell E., Jr. Children with Mary: Elizabeth, Louise, Harding A.
Parents	Alexander Jackson & Mary Hurt

Howell Edmunds Jackson (April 8, 1832–August 8, 1895) was an American jurist and politician. He served on the United States Supreme Court, in the U.S. Senate, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and the Tennessee House of Representatives. He authored notable opinions on the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. His secretary on the Supreme Court was James Clark McReynolds who became a Supreme Court Justice.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Civil War 3 Career in Memphis, TN 4 Later career 5 U.S. Supreme Court 6 References

Early life

Jackson was born in Paris, Tennessee to Alexander Jackson, a doctor, and Mary Hurt Jackson, the daughter of a Baptist minister, both natives of Virginia. He moved to Jackson, Tennessee, with his parents at the age of eight where his father would be elected as a Whig to the state legislature and subsequently as Jackson's mayor.

Howell graduated from West Tennessee College (now Union University) in 1849, where he studied Greek and Latin, then attended the University of Virginia for two years and then earned a law degree from [[Cumberland University. He then returned to Tennessee and clerked for Judge A.W.O. Totten of the Tennessee Supreme Court, and Milton Brown, a former U.S. Representative. The next year Howell attended Cumberland School of Law in Lebanon, Tennessee and graduated in 1856. Upon admission to the bar, he practiced first in Jackson, but was unable to establish a successful practice, so he relocated to Memphis and partnered with David M. Currin, a prominent Democrat. In Memphis he married Sophia Malloy, the daughter of a local client.

Civil War

Although opposed to secession, he served the Confederacy as a receiver of property confiscated from Unionists during the Civil War. His brother William Hicks Jackson was a Confederate brigadier-general.

After the fall of Memphis in 1862, he and his family spent the remainder of the war in LaGrange, Georgia.

Career in Memphis, TN

After the war, Jackson took an oath of allegiance to the Union, which allowed him to return to the practice of law in Memphis. He took a new partner, Bedford M. Estes, and their practice grew to represent prominent businesses, including banks, railroads and some northern business interests. In 1873 he lost his wife during a yellow fever outbreak, leaving him to care for their children. He subsequently married Mary E. Harding, who was the daughter of William G. Harding, a wealthy Nashville landowner. This marriage put him in contact with numerous prominent citizens and the estate her father gave them provided his family the appearance of wealth. However, Howell's family was not wealthy, in part, because of the trouble he had collecting payments from clients. He returned to Jackson in 1874 and served on the Court of Arbitration for West Tennessee on two occasions.

Later career

He was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives as a Democrat in 1880. After taking his seat, a bitter fight ensued over the election of a U.S. Senator by the Tennessee General Assembly. Jackson was promoted as a compromise candidate and with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, succeeded on the first ballot.

He took office on March 4, 1881 and served for five years, during which time he supported issues such as civil service reforms, creation of an Interstate Commerce Commission, and restrictions of Chinese immigration.

Jackson resigned from the Senate in April 14, 1886 to accept appointment by President Grover Cleveland to the United States circuit court for the Sixth Circuit, which then became the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He served with distinction and wrote notable opinions on the Interstate Commerce Act and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

U.S. Supreme Court

He served on the Sixth Circuit until 1893, when President Benjamin Harrison, despite the difference in their respective political parties, nominated him to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States upon the death of Lucius Q. C. Lamar. His nomination was non-partisan, and was announced on February 2, 1893. He was confirmed only 16 days later by a unanimous Senate vote at the age of 60.

He wrote forty-six opinions and four dissents. His experience in patent law served the Court well since it was clogged with patent cases at that time.

Jackson contracted tuberculosis one year after joining the Court. His brother William asked Congress to pass a retirement bill for him, but Jackson recovered and returned to the Court. There he cast one final vote on a case brought over the constitutionality of the national income tax passed in August 1894, which levied a 2% tax on income over $4,000. Jackson's return sparked attention, and one reporter commented that:

He interested the crowd more than all the rest of the bench; that his life can last but a short time and that it will probably be shortened by the effort which he has made to attend the hearing.

Jackson, however, did not cast a tie-breaking vote. The Court held that the tax was unconstitutional but Jackson voted with the minority. In a stinging dissent he lambasted the Court's ruling stating that it "was the most disastrous blow ever struck at the Constitutional power of Congress."

Three months later he died in Nashville. Eighteen years later the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, giving Congress power to enact the disputed tax.

Howell Jackson is buried in Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery.

References

• Howell Edmunds Jackson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• "Howell Edmunds Jackson". Webster's American Biographies. (1975). G. & C. Merriam Company.
• Harvey Gresham Hudspeth, HOWELL EDMUNDS JACKSON, 1832-1895, Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture.
• Howell Jackson on Find-A-Grave

United States Senate
Preceded by James E. Bailey	United States Senator (Class 1) from Tennessee 1881-1886 Served alongside: Isham G. Harris	Succeeded by Washington C. Whitthorne
Legal offices
Preceded by New seat	Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit 1891-1893	Succeeded by Horace Harmon Lurton
Preceded by Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States March 4, 1893 – August 8, 1895	Succeeded by Rufus Wheeler Peckham

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Supreme Court of the United States
The Fuller Court Chief Justice: Melville Weston Fuller (1888–1910) 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

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