William Burnham Woods

Wood, William [Burke] (1779–1861), actor and manager. Born in Montreal, he worked as an accountant and as a lawyer's assistant before attempting his own business venture, which went bust and landed him in debtor prison. Wood then made his acting debut in 1798, was soon performing in Philadelphia, and was made treasurer of the Chestnut Street Theatre, which he eventually took over in conjunction with the elder William Warren. The pair also managed theatres in Baltimore, Annapolis, and Washington. All the time Wood continued to act, excelling at comedy, until his retirement in 1846. Autobiography: Personal Reflections of the Stage, 1855.

(b. Newark, Ohio, 3 August 1824; d. Washington, D.C., 14 May 1887; interred Cedar Hill Cemetery, Newark), associate justice, 1881–1887. Appointed to the Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, Justice William B. Woods served until his death in 1887. During his brief tenure, Woods was part of the Court's mainstream that gave a narrow reading to the Civil War Amendments, particularly the Fourteenth. His most important opinions restricted congressional ability to protect individuals from private infringement of civil rights and rejected the applicability of the Bill of Rights to the states.

William B. Woods was the son of Ezekiel S. Woods, a farmer and merchant, and Sarah Burnham. He graduated from Yale College and clerked with S. D. King, an Ohio attorney; in 1847 he was admitted to Ohio's bar. Active in the state's Democratic party before the Civil War, he served in the state legislature on the eve of the conflict. During the war he served in an Ohio volunteer regiment and rose to the rank of brevet major general.

After the war, Woods settled in Alabama and switched his political allegiances to the Republican party. He served in that state's chancery court system, developing an expertise in equity, for which he would later be noted in the federal courts. In 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to the Fifth Circuit Court, where he initially took a more expansive view of the guarantees provided by the Fourteenth Amendment than he would later on the Supreme Court. While on the Fifth Circuit he voted to strike down government mandated monopoly as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause. He also interpreted that clause as allowing the federal government to punish private violations of civil rights.

After his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1881, Woods' view of the Fourteenth Amendment grew more conservative. He joined with the majority in the Civil Rights Cases to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as exceeding federal power.

His two most significant opinions involved the Fourteenth Amendment. In United States v. Harris (1883), he struck down the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 on the grounds that protection of individuals from private conspiracies was a state not a federal function. In another opinion, Presser v. Illinois (1886), Woods limited the possibilities of applying the Bill of Rights to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. In Presser, which involved an Illinois statute that prohibited private citizens from parading while armed, Woods held that the Second Amendment limited federal but not state action.

Justice Woods' jurisprudence reflected a concern with maintaining state prerogative and limiting federal power. That concern played a significant role in helping to limit the ability of the Fourteenth Amendment to act as a vehicle to protect individual rights.

Bibliography

• L. Filler, William B. Woods, in The Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1789–1969, edited by Leon M. Friedman and Fred L. Israel, vol. 2 (1969), pp. 1327–1336

— Robert J. Cottrol

1881–87

• Born: Aug. 3, 1824, Newark, Ohio
• Education: Western Reserve College, 1841–44; Yale College, B.A., 1845
• Previous government service: mayor of Newark, Ohio, 1856; Ohio House of Representatives, 1858–62, Speaker, 1858–60, minority leader, 1860–62; chancellor, Middle Chancery District of Alabama, 1868–69; judge, U.S. Circuit Court for the Fifth Judicial Circuit, 1869–80
• Appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes Dec. 15, 1880; replaced William Strong, who retired
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Dec. 21, 1880, by a 39–8 vote; served until May 14, 1887
• Died: May 14, 1887, Washington, D.C.

William B. Woods served briefly on the Supreme Court during the 1880s. His main contributions to constitutional law came through his narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment. For example, he sided with the Court's majority in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) to declare unconstitutional the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which was designed to use federal authority to protect black Americans against abuse of their rights by state government.

Writing for the Court in Presser v. Illinois (1886), Justice Woods argued that the Bill of Rights restricted only the federal government and could not be applied to the states through the 14th Amendment. This position was not overturned until the second quarter of the 20th century. In general, Justice Woods favored limitations on federal power in favor of state powers and rights.

William Burnham Woods served on the U.S. Supreme Court as an associate justice from 1881 to 1887. Woods's legal career led him into politics in his native Ohio, where he was a mayor and a member of the Ohio General Assembly before the Civil War. In the war, he fought on the side of the Union as a commander, and afterward he moved to Alabama where he began a judicial career in the late 1860s. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Woods to the U.S. Supreme Court, where his conservative philosophy generally favored states' rights over federal power.

Born on August 3, 1824, in Newark, Ohio, Woods was the son of a farmer. He attended Western Reserve College, graduated from Yale University in 1845, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1847. Over the next fourteen years, he practiced law while involving himself in the state's Democratic party. He mounted a successful campaign for the mayoralty of Newark in 1856, and twice won election to the Ohio General Assembly where he served from 1857 to 1861.

When the Civil War began, Woods volunteered for an Ohio regiment. He fought for the Union in several battles, including Shiloh and Vicksburg, and gradually rose through the ranks. By the time the war was drawing to a close, he was a commander under General William T. Sherman. Woods led Sherman's troops in the brutal march to the sea in Georgia that destroyed all the cities and towns between Atlanta and Savannah.

After the war, Woods changed his life. He left Ohio and moved to Alabama, became a Republican, and commenced a judicial career. In 1868 he served as chancellor of the state's Middle Chancery Division of Alabama, which made him the presiding judge of the state's equity courts, the now-antiquated system of justice that dealt with common claims. He held the position until 1880, when his reputation prompted President Ulysses S. Grant to appoint him a U.S. district judge in the Fifth Circuit. Woods's judicial conservatism began to develop during this period; however, he still took a somewhat tolerant view of federal power, especially with regard to the government's power to protect civil rights.

In 1881 President Hayes nominated Woods to the U.S. Supreme Court. Once in the Court's conservative majority, his judicial priorities changed. Following the Civil War, Congress had enacted new civil rights laws aimed at ending racial discrimination; equally important to this end was the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1868. But the Supreme Court soon undermined these efforts. In 1883 it struck down provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875; Woods joined in the 8 to 1 majority in the so-called Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 3 S. Ct. 18, 27 L. Ed. 835.

Woods's intolerance for federal reform efforts marked his last years on the Court. Like the majority of the justices, he took a narrow view of the Fourteenth Amendment. He wrote the majority opinion in United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. 629, 1 S. Ct. 601, 16 Otto 629, 27 L. Ed. 290 (1883), which held unconstitutional a federal law protecting African Americans from the terrorist Ku Klux Klan organization. Woods stated that such powers properly belonged to states rather than the federal government. He died on May 14, 1887, in Washington D.C.

For other persons named William Woods, see William Woods (disambiguation).

William Burnham Woods
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office January 5, 1881 – May 14, 1887
Nominated by	Rutherford B. Hayes
Preceded by	William Strong
Succeeded by	Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
Born	August 3, 1824(1824-08-03) Newark, Ohio
Died	May 14, 1887 (aged 62) Washington, D.C.

William Burnham Woods (August 3, 1824 – May 14, 1887) was an American jurist, politician, and soldier.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Civil War service 3 Postbellum career 4 See also 5 References

Early life and career

Woods was born on August 3, 1824 in Newark, Ohio. He was the older brother of Charles R. Woods, another future Civil War general. He attended college at both Western Reserve University and Yale University, graduating from Yale in 1845. Upon his graduation he returned home to Newark and studied law, being admitted to the bar in 1847 and establishing a practice with his tutor.

Woods, a loyal Democrat, was elected mayor of Newark in 1856, and to the Ohio General Assembly in 1858, being named Speaker of the House shortly thereafter. He opposed the Civil War but, not being a proponent of slavery, came to see the necessity of a Union victory. In 1862 he left the Ohio state house and joined the Union Army.

Civil War service

General Woods, date of photograph unknown

He was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 76th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which served in the Western Theater. He fought at the battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg, and was promoted to brigadier general. Woods commanded a brigade under William T. Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign and a division during Sherman's March to the Sea. During the Carolinas Campaign, he fought with distinction at the Battle of Bentonville. He was appointed a brevet major general in early 1865. He left the Army in February 1866.

Postbellum career

At the end of the war, Woods stayed in the South, settling in Bentonville, Alabama, where he reopened his law practice and began farming cotton. In 1869 he was named by President Ulysses S. Grant as a circuit judge for the Fifth Circuit (which preceded the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit).

Woods sat on the Fifth Circuit for 11 years, before being named by Rutherford B. Hayes to the Supreme Court in December 1880. He was the first person named to the high court from a Confederate state since 1853, though, being a northerner and {by that time} a Republican he was palatable to the Republican majority in the Senate.

Woods was not a major contributor to the court, spending only six years on the bench. He remained on the court until his death in 1887.

See also

American Civil War portal

United States Army portal

• List of American Civil War generals

References

• Supreme Court Historical Society
• Oyez (Supreme Court multimedia site)

Legal offices
Preceded by William Strong	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States January 5, 1881 – May 14, 1887	Succeeded by Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar

Supreme Court of the United States
The Waite Court Chief Justice: Morrison Remick Waite (1874–1888) 1881: N. Clifford | S.F. Miller | S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | W. Hunt | J.M. Harlan | Wm. B. Woods | S. Matthews 1882–1887: S.F. Miller | S.J. Field | J.P. Bradley | J.M. Harlan | Wm. B. Woods | S. Matthews | H. Gray | S. Blatchford

Persondata
NAME	Woods, William Burnham
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	United States Army general
DATE OF BIRTH	August 3, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH	Newark, Ohio
DATE OF DEATH	May 14, 1887
PLACE OF DEATH	Washington, D.C.

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