(b. Ruckersville, Ga., 14 Oct. 1857; d. Washington, D.C., 2 Jan. 1916; interred Sand Hills Cemetery, Augusta, Ga.), associate justice, 1911–1916. Joseph Rucker Lamar followed a family legacy of involvement in civic affairs. The Lamars and Ruckers, among the social elite of their respective communities, had fashioned a reputation for public leadership. Two relatives on the paternal side, in fact, had achieved national prominence during the nineteenth century. Mirabeau Lamar served as president of the fledgling Republic of Texas (1838–1841) and L. Q. C. Lamar enjoyed a distinguished career as a member of Congress, secretary of the interior, and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1888–1893). As a respected attorney and able jurist on the supreme courts of state and nation, Joseph R. Lamar kept alive that ancestral heritage.

As a youth Lamar received the cultural and educational advantages derived from social affluence. Reared in the traditional graces of southern gentility, Lamar developed patrician values that continued to influence personal and professional actions throughout his life. He attended the University of Georgia and graduated in 1877 from Bethany College in West Virginia.

While Lamar served briefly in the Georgia legislature, his enduring public contributions as well as personal pleasure came in the realm of law, not politics. He studied law for one term at Washington and Lee University, then served as an apprentice before admission to the Georgia bar in 1878. Widespread recognition of his legal skills led to his appointment as one of three commissioners charged with the revision of the Georgia code. Lamar alone prepared the volume on civil law that the state legislature approved in 1895. A student of legal history, he also wrote several celebrated monographs on the evolution of law in Georgia. Appointed to the state supreme court in 1903, Lamar served two years before returning to private practice. He often represented corporations, mainly railroads, and on occasion argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Nomination to the Supreme Court in 1910 surprised the Georgia lawyer who had only the year earlier met President William Howard Taft while the latter vacationed in Augusta. The Senate quickly and unanimously confirmed the appointment, and Lamar joined a Court confronted with issues, among others, of interstate commerce, state and national police power, and administrative discretion.

The tenure of Lamar was by and large unremarkable. On a highly consensual Court, he almost always voted with the majority. His noteworthy opinions were those that expanded administrative discretion for executive officials. In United States v. Grimaud (1911), for example, Lamar upheld the constitutionality of the Forest Reserve Act of 1891 against charges that it unlawfully delegated legislative power to the secretary of agriculture. This landmark decision allowed administrators the discretion to “fill in the details” when implementing laws. Similarly, in United States v. Midwest Oil Company (1915), Lamar expanded presidential power to withdraw land from public use without congressional authorization.

Lamar served in one noteworthy extrajudicial capacity. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson, his childhood friend, dispatched Lamar to participate in sensitive diplomatic negotiations regarding Mexico at the Argentina, Brazil, Chile (ABC.) Conference. Lamar discharged that duty with the usual temperance that so characterized his public life.

Bibliography

• Clarinda Pendleton Lamar, The Life of Joseph Rucker Lamar (1926)

— John W. Winkle III

• Born: Oct. 14, 1857, Ruckersville, Ga.
• Education: University of Georgia, 1874–75; Bethany College, B.A., 1877; Washington and Lee University, 1877
• Previous government service: Georgia House of Representatives, 1886–89; commissioner to codify Georgia laws, 1893; associate justice, Georgia Supreme Court, 1903–5
• Appointed by President William Howard Taft Dec. 12, 1910; replaced William Henry Moody, who retired
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Dec. 15, 1910, by a voice vote; served until Jan. 2, 1916
• Died: Jan. 2, 1916, Washington, D.C.

Joseph R. Lamar belonged to a socially prominent family in Georgia. His ardent studies of law and legal history led to his appointment to a state commission to codify the laws of Georgia. He alone wrote the resulting volume on civil law in Georgia. He later wrote several books on the history of law in Georgia.

During his brief term on the Court, Justice Lamar tended to vote with the majority. He wrote only eight dissents. His only notable opinion for the Court was in a 1911 case, United States v. Grimaud, which upheld a federal law, the Forest Reserve Act of 1911. This decision gave leeway to federal administrations to “fill in details” when carrying out laws.

(ləmär') , 1857–1916, American jurist, b. Elbert co., Ga. He was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1878, served (1886–89) in the state legislature, and compiled The Code of the State of Georgia (1896). He served (1904–6) on the state supreme court and was Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1911–16).

Bibliography

See biography by his wife, C. P. Lamar (1926).

Joseph Rucker Lamar served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1911 to 1916. Unlike many appointees to the Court, Lamar was not selected on the basis of a long political career. As an attorney and Georgia Supreme Court judge, Lamar was recognized for his legal abilities.

Lamar was born in Ruckersville, Georgia, on October 14, 1857. His wealthy family provided generations of leadership in the community, and included Lucius Q.C. Lamar, who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1893.

Lamar attended the University of Georgia and graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia in 1877. He then attended Washington and Lee Law School and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1878. From 1880 to 1903, Lamar practiced law in Augusta, Georgia. He often represented corporations, including railroads, and argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1886 to 1889. His legal abilities were used more directly when he was appointed to serve on a commission revising the Georgia code of state laws. Codification is a process of revising and reorganizing legislative laws into a coherent whole. Lamar mastered the highly technical process and revised the civil-law volume himself. The code was approved by the legislature in 1895.

In 1903 he was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court. He resigned in 1905 to return to his law practice.

Lamar was surprised when President William Howard Taft, a Republican, appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1910. Lamar had met Taft the year before when the president was visiting Augusta, but was not well acquainted with him or his circle. In fact, Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who became president in 1912, was a childhood friend of Lamar's.

During Lamar's brief term on the Court, interstate commerce and the growth of federal regulatory and administrative power were prime topics of legal dispute. Lamar adhered to the majority view in most cases. He wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506, 31 S. Ct. 480, 55 L. Ed. 563 (1911), which expanded the authority of the executive branch to add details deliberately left open by congressional legislation. Lamar held that it was not an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to allow administrators to exercise their discretion in filling in the details of laws.

Lamar died January 2, 1916, in Washington, D.C.

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