Reverdy Johnson

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Reverdy Johnson served as U.S. attorney general from 1849 to 1850. Johnson also served in the U.S. Senate and was an influential constitutional lawyer. He represented the defense in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 (19 How.) U.S. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857).

Johnson was born May 21, 1796, in Annapolis, Maryland. He graduated from St. John's College, in Annapolis, in 1811 and was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1815. After establishing a law practice in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Johnson relocated to Baltimore in 1817 and opened a new firm that specialized in constitutional law.

After his relocation Johnson became interested in politics and government service. He was deputy attorney general of Maryland before being elected to the Maryland Senate in 1821. In 1845 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, then resigned in 1849 to serve as U.S. attorney general in the administration of President Zachary Taylor.

Johnson's talents in constitutional law were demonstrated in the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott was an African American slave from Missouri who had been transported to Minnesota, then a "free" (non-slaveholding) territory. Scott sued for his freedom, arguing that he was no longer a slave because he had resided in a free territory. Missouri law had established the principle "once free, always free." John F.A. Sandford, who controlled Scott, objected to the trial court's declaration that Scott was free. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed with Sandford and overturned the once-free, always-free doctrine. Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Scott's lawyer framed it as a suit for Scott's freedom. Johnson, one of several lawyers representing Sandford, injected into the proceeding several new issues that transformed the case into a debate over the constitutionality of slavery. Johnson argued that Scott had no right to sue in federal court, raising the issue of a black person's claim to be a U.S. citizen. Johnson also attacked the constitutionality of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, which gave Congress the power to forbid slavery in the territories. Johnson claimed that slaves were private property protected by the Constitution, and therefore Congress could not abolish slavery in the territories. These arguments transformed the issue from whether Scott could be returned to slavery to whether Scott had ever been free at all.

The Supreme Court adopted most of Johnson's arguments. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's majority opinion concluded that at the time of the ratification of the Constitution, there were no African American citizens in the United States. Therefore, the Framers never contemplated that African Americans could be federal citizens. In practical terms Scott's lack of citizenship meant he could not sue in federal court. In addition, the Court ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.

The Dred Scott case helped precipitate the secession of southern states and the Civil War, yet Johnson supported the Union during the war. He waged a successful campaign to prevent Maryland from seceding, before returning to the U.S. Senate in 1861.

After the Civil War, Johnson was the lone Democratic member of the U.S. Senate to support the ideas of the Radical Republicans' Reconstruction policy. He was a member of the Reconstruction committee and of a joint congressional committee that looked into these issues.

In 1868, as a member of the Senate Rules Committee, Johnson participated in impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson. He was strongly in favor of a verdict of acquittal, which occurred by the slimmest of margins.

Johnson entered the foreign service in 1868 as a minister to Great Britain. In 1869 he returned to his law practice. He spent much of his later years defending southerners charged with disloyalty to the federal government. He successfully argued that the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to illegal acts committed by the government, not to acts committed by private citizens, including vigilantes.

Johnson died February 10, 1876, in Annapolis, Maryland.

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Reverdy Johnson
United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office 1868–1869
President	Andrew Johnson
Preceded by	Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
Succeeded by	John Lothrop Motley
United States Senator
In office March 4, 1863 – July 10, 1868
Preceded by	Anthony Kennedy
Succeeded by	William Pinkney Whyte
Maryland House of Delegates
In office 1861–1862
United States Attorney General
In office March 8, 1849 – July 21, 1850
President	Zachary Taylor Millard Fillmore
Preceded by	Isaac Toucey
Succeeded by	John J. Crittenden
United States Senator
In office March 4, 1845 – March 7, 1849
Preceded by	William D. Merrick
Succeeded by	David Stewart
Personal details
Born	May 21, 1796(1796-05-21)[1] Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.[1]
Died	February 10, 1876(1876-02-10) (aged 79) Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.
Political party	Whig, Democrat
Spouse(s)	Mary M. Johnson
Alma mater	St. John's College[1]
Profession	Lawyer, Politician[1]

Reverdy Johnson (May 21, 1796 – February 10, 1876) was a statesman and jurist from Maryland.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Federal politics 2 Death and burial 3 In popular culture 4 References 5 Further reading

Biography

Early life

Reverdy Johnson's house in Annapolis, Maryland.

Born in Annapolis, Johnson was the son of a distinguished Maryland lawyer and politician, John Johnson (1770–1824). He graduated from St. John's College in 1812 and then studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1815, and then moved to Baltimore, where he became a legal colleague of Luther Martin, William Pinkney and Roger B. Taney. From 1821 until 1825 he served in the Maryland State Senate and then returned to practice law for two decades.^[1]

Reverdy Johnson, along with John Glenn and Evan Ellicott were responsible for exacerbating the Baltimore bank crisis of 1835. Following the collapse of the Union Bank of Maryland, Johnson obstructed efforts to obtain a fair and objective accounting of the bank's assets in order to maintain his personal fortune. He falsely accused Evan Poultney and Thomas Ellicott of misconduct in order to create a smokescreen to obscure his own misconduct. Thus began an ignoble aspect to his career partially that culminated^{[clarification needed]} in Johnson's advocacy on behalf of Southern slaveowners in the infamous Dred Scott case, and which was only partially redeemed by his support for the Union during 1861-1865 War of the Rebellion.

Federal politics

From 1845 to 1849, he represented Maryland in the United States Senate as a Whig, and from March 1849 until July 1850 he was Attorney General of the United States under President Zachary Taylor.^[1] He resigned^{[clarification needed]} that position soon after Millard Fillmore took office.

A conservative Democrat, he supported Stephen A. Douglas in the presidential election of 1860. He represented the slave-owning defendant in the famous 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford.^[1] He was personally opposed to slavery and was a key figure in the effort to keep Maryland from seceding from the Union during the American Civil War.

The Zachary Taylor Administration, 1849 daguerreotype by Mathew Brady. Left to right: William B. Preston, Thomas Ewing, John M. Clayton, Zachary Taylor, William M. Meredith, George W. Crawford, Jacob Collamer and Reverdy Johnson, (1849).

He served as a Maryland delegate to the Peace Convention of 1861 and from 1861 to 1862 served in the Maryland House of Delegates. During this time he represented Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter at his court-martial, arguing that Porter's distinguished record of service ought to put him beyond question. The officers on the court-martial, all handpicked by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, voted to convict Porter of cowardice and disobedience.

After the capture of New Orleans, he was commissioned by President Abraham Lincoln to revise the decisions of the military commandant, General Benjamin F. Butler, in regard to foreign governments, and reversed all those decisions to the entire satisfaction of the administration. After the war, reflecting the diverse points of view held by his fellow statesmen, Johnson argued for a gentler Reconstruction effort than that advocated by the Radical Republicans.

In 1863 he again took a seat in the United States Senate, serving through 1868. In 1865, he defended Mary Surratt before a military tribunal. Surratt was convicted and executed for plotting and aiding Lincoln's assassination. In 1866, he was a delegate to the National Union Convention which attempted to build support for President Johnson. Senator Johnson's report on the proceedings of the convention was entered into the record of President Johnson's impeachment trial. In the Senate, he also served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In 1867, Reverdy Johnson voted for the Reconstruction Act of 1867, the only Democrat to vote for a Reconstruction measure in 1866 or 1867. In 1868 he was appointed minister to the United Kingdom and soon after his arrival in England negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty for the settlement of disputes arising out of the Civil War; this, however, the Senate refused to advise and consent to ratification, and he returned home on the accession of General Ulysses S. Grant to the presidency. Again resuming his legal practice, he was engaged by the government in the prosecution of cases against the Ku Klux Klan as well as work compiling the reports of the decisions of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

Death and burial

In early 1876 Johnson was in Annapolis, Maryland arguing the case of Baker v. Frick in the Court of Appeals and was a guest at the Maryland Governor's Mansion. On February 10, during a dinner party at the mansion, he fell near a basement door, possibly after tripping, and was killed instantly after hitting his head on a sharp corner of the mansion's granite base course and then again on the cobblestone pavement.^[2]

He is buried in Greenmount Cemetery at Baltimore. Johnson had been the last surviving member of the Taylor Cabinet.

In popular culture

In the 2011 film, The Conspirator, Johnson is portrayed by actor Tom Wilkinson.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Holt, Michael. "Reverdy Johnson (1849–1850): Attorney General". American President: An Online Reference Resource. The University of Virginia. http://millercenter.org/president/taylor/essays/cabinet/244. Retrieved 13 December 2010. 
2. ^ "Hon. Reverdy Johnson.; A Physician's Theory of the Cause of Death--Marks of Respect to the Deceased Statesman.". New York Times. February 11, 1876. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20A14FF355B127B93C0A81789D85F428784F9. Retrieved September 5, 2011. 

Further reading

• Steiner, Bernard C., Life of Reverdy Johnson, New Library Press.Net. ISBN 0-7950-2452-5
• Reverdy Johnson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Includes Guide to Research Collections where his papers are located.
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Johnson, Reverdy". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Reverdy Johnson at Find-A-Grave

United States Senate
Preceded by William D. Merrick	United States Senator (Class 1) from Maryland March 4, 1845 – March 7, 1849 Served alongside: James A. Pearce	Succeeded by David Stewart
Preceded by Anthony Kennedy	United States Senator (Class 1) from Maryland March 4, 1863 – July 10, 1868 Served alongside: Thomas Holliday Hicks, John A. J. Creswell and George Vickers	Succeeded by William Pinkney Whyte
Legal offices
Preceded by Isaac Toucey	United States Attorney General Served under: Zachary Taylor March 8, 1849 – July 21, 1850	Succeeded by John J. Crittenden
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Charles Francis Adams, Sr.	U.S. Minister to Great Britain 1868–1869	Succeeded by John Lothrop Motley

v t e United States Attorneys General Randolph Bradford Lee Lincoln Breckinridge Rodney Pinkney Rush Wirt Berrien Taney Butler Grundy Gilpin Crittenden Legaré Nelson Mason Clifford Toucey Johnson Crittenden Cushing Black Stanton Bates Speed Stanbery Evarts Hoar Akerman Williams Pierrepont Taft Devens MacVeagh Brewster Garland Miller Olney Harmon McKenna Griggs Knox Moody Bonaparte Wickersham McReynolds Gregory Palmer Daugherty Stone Sargent W D Mitchell Cummings Murphy Jackson Biddle T C Clark McGrath McGranery Brownell Rogers Kennedy Katzenbach W R Clark J N Mitchell Kleindienst Richardson Saxbe Levi Bell Civiletti Smith Meese Thornburgh Barr Reno Ashcroft Gonzales Mukasey Holder

v t e United States Senators from Maryland Class 1 Carroll Potts Howard S. Smith Harper Hanson Pinkney S. Smith Kent Merrick Johnson Stewart Pratt Kennedy Johnson Whyte Hamilton Whyte Gorman McComas Rayner Jackson Lee France Bruce P. Goldsborough Radcliffe O'Conor Beall, Sr. J. Tydings Beall, Jr. Sarbanes Cardin Class 3 Henry J. Lloyd Hindman Wright Reed R. Goldsborough E. Lloyd Chambers R. Goldsborough Spence Kerr Pearce Hicks Creswell Vickers Dennis Groome Wilson Gibson Wellington Gorman Whyte J. Smith Weller M. Tydings Butler Brewster Mathias Mikulski

v t e Cabinet of President Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) Vice President Millard Fillmore (1849–1850) Secretary of State John M. Clayton (1849–1850) Secretary of the Treasury William M. Meredith (1849–1850) Secretary of War George W. Crawford (1849–1850) Attorney General Reverdy Johnson (1849–1850) Postmaster General Jacob Collamer (1849–1850) Secretary of the Navy William B. Preston (1849–1850) Secretary of the Interior Thomas Ewing (1849–1850)

v t e United States Ambassadors to the United Kingdom Ministers Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's 1785–1811 John Adams 1785–1788 · Thomas Pinckney 1792–1796 · Rufus King 1796–1803 · James Monroe 1803–1807 · William Pinkney 1808–1811 · Jonathan Russell (chargé d'affaires) 1811–1812 Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's 1815–1893 John Quincy Adams 1815–1817 · Richard Rush 1818–1825 · Rufus King 1825–1826 · Albert Gallatin 1826–1827 · James Barbour 1828–1829 · Louis McLane 1829–1831 · Martin Van Buren 1831–1832 · Aaron Vail (chargé d'affaires) 1832–1836 · Andrew Stevenson 1836–1841 · Edward Everett 1841–1845 · Louis McLane 1845–1846 · George Bancroft 1846–1849 · Abbott Lawrence 1849–1852 · Joseph R. Ingersoll 1852–1853 · James Buchanan 1853–1856 · George M. Dallas 1856–1861 · Charles Adams, Sr. 1861–1868 · Reverdy Johnson 1868–1869 · John Lothrop Motley 1869–1870 · Robert C. Schenck 1871–1876 · Edwards Pierrepont 1876–1877 · John Welsh 1877–1879 · James Russell Lowell 1880–1885 · Edward J. Phelps 1885–1889 · Robert Todd Lincoln 1889–1893 Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James's 1893–present Thomas F. Bayard, Sr. 1893–1897 · John Hay 1897–1898 · Joseph Choate 1899–1905 · Whitelaw Reid 1905–1912 · Walter Page 1913-1918 · John W. Davis 1918–1921 · George Harvey 1921–1923 · Frank B. Kellogg 1924–1925 · Alanson B. Houghton 1925–1929 · Charles G. Dawes 1929–1931 · Andrew W. Mellon 1932–1933 · Robert Bingham 1933–1937 · Joseph P. Kennedy 1938–1940 · John G. Winant 1941–1946 · W. Averell Harriman 1946 · Lewis W. Douglas 1947–1950 · Walter S. Gifford 1950–1953 · Winthrop W. Aldrich 1953–1957 · John Hay Whitney 1957–1961 · David K. E. Bruce 1961–1969 · Walter H. Annenberg 1969–1974 · Elliot L. Richardson 1975–1976 · Anne Armstrong 1976–1977 · Kingman Brewster, Jr. 1977–1981 · John J. Louis, Jr. 1981–1983 · Charles H. Price II 1983–1989 · Henry E. Catto, Jr. 1989–1991 · Raymond G. H. Seitz 1991–1994 · William J. Crowe 1994–1997 · Philip Lader 1997–2001 · William Stamps Farish III 2001–2004 · Robert H. Tuttle 2005–2009 · Louis Susman 2009–

Persondata
Name	Johnson, Reverdy
Alternative names
Short description	American politician
Date of birth	May 21, 1796
Place of birth	Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.
Date of death	February 10, 1876
Place of death	Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.

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