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Bee,
I guess by now you've figured out that I'm an irrepressible researcher. If it bothers you, let me know. When you mentioned John A. Campbell, I realized that all I had on him was A.W. Smith's statement. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, I found the following information (and yes, his career was just as interesting though his name was not!)
Austin Wheeler Smith: He became a Supreme Judge of the U.S. Supreme Court and took part as a commissioner in the celebrated conference at Hampton Roads.
JOHN A. CAMPBELL
John Archibald Campbell was born to Col. Duncan Green Campbell (1782-1828), for whom Campbell County, Georgia was named, and Mary Williamson in Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia on June 24, 1811. A child prodigy, he entered Franklin College (now known as University of Georgia) in Athens, Clarke County, Georgia at the age of eleven, and graduated first in his class in 1826. He then spent three years as a cadet at West Point, but resigned to take care of his family upon the death of his father. He studied law under former Georgia Governor John Clark (February 28, 1766-October 2, 1832) and was admitted to the bar by special act of the Georgia legislature in 1829, on account of being only 18 years old. He then moved to Montgomery, Montgomery County, Alabama, and established a successful practice.
His knowledge of legal matters brought him lifelong notoriety and recognition. In 1836, he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives and was Chairman of the state's Bank Committee. Following his term, he relocated to Mobile, Mobile County, Alabama and married Anna Esther Goldthwaite. He was tendered appointments for Secretary of Legation to Great Britain by U.S. President Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767-June 8, 1845), and also for Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama by Governor Clement Comer Clay (December 17, 1789-September 7, 1866), but he respectfully declined both. He was re-elected to the Alabama legislature in 1846, and was one of Alabama's representatives to the Southern States Convention in Nashville, Tennessee in 1850. In 1852, he again declined appointment to the Supreme Court of Alabama. However, in 1853 he accepted the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, which was tendered him by U.S. President Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804-October 8, 1869), and was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Known as a conservative thinker and strong believer in compromise, he hoped that secession might be averted. For those reasons he became the mediator between Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward (May 16, 1801-October 10, 1872) and the Confederacy's commissioners in March and April 1861. Seward intimated to him that the policy of the new administration was that of peace, and that he should persuade the Confederate commissioners to trust the U.S. Government fully. However, as he was pledging this assurance, the Federals were organizing a coercion movement to reinforce Fort Sumter and maneuver the South into firing first. Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 volunteers to invade the South was sufficient confirmation to Campbell that he and the Confederacy had been dealt with deceitfully. He promptly resigned his seat on the bench on April 30, 1861, and returned home to Alabama.
President Jefferson Davis (June 3, 1808-December 6, 1889) appointed him Assistant Secretary of War on October 21, 1862, a position he capably held until the end of the war. In February 1865, with Senator Robert M. T. Hunter (April 21, 1809-July 18, 1887) and Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens (February 11, 1812-March 4, 1883), Campbell was a member of the failed Hampton Roads Peace Conference. After the fall of Richmond, he was arrested on May 22, 1865 and imprisoned with Hunter, James A. Seddon (July 13, 1815-August 19, 1880), and George A. Trenholm (February 25, 1807-December 9, 1876) at Fort Pulaski, near Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia. Following his release on October 11, 1865, he resumed his law practice in New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana in 1866 and went on to argue many cases before the very same U.S. Supreme Court, of which he had once been a member. Campbell died in Baltimore, Baltimore County, Maryland on March 12, 1889 and is buried in Green Mount Cemetery.
http://www.csawardept.com/history/cabinet/campbell/
John A. Campbell, Ala. 1853–1861 years on court-8 Born in Ga. born 1811 died 1889 religion: Episcopal
Appointed by Franklin Pierce
Justice John McKinley is one of three Alabamians to serve on the United States Supreme Court. John Archibald Campbell filled the vacancy on the Court created by the death of Justice McKinley, and the federal courthouse in Mobile is named in his (McKinley's) honor.
LEAVING THE BENCH: SUPREME COURT JUSTICES AT THE END by David N. Atkinson. Lawrence: The University Press of Kansas, 1999.
Reviewed by Lawrence Baum, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University.
http://www.polsci.wvu.edu/lpbr/subpages/reviews/atkinson.html
LEAVING THE BENCH has three connected purposes: "to suggest why justices leave the Court and why some refuse to leave; to provide a description of how each justice left; and to ask when justices should leave."
It is fairly well known that Georgian John Campbell resigned from the Court in 1861 and later served as a skilled advocate for business interests. It is not as well known that, as Atkinson reports, the Confederacy "never created a Supreme Court because [Campbell's] opponents feared he might be appointed to it" (p. 38).
1811--U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Archibald Campbell was born near Washington, Georgia. After graduating from the University of Georgia at the age of 14, he practiced law in Alabama. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Campbell to the U.S. Supreme Court, where four years later he sided with the majority decision in the Dred Scott case, adding his own concurring opinion in the important case. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Campbell resigned from the high court and became Assistant Secretary of War for the Confederacy. When Campbell was imprisoned briefly after the war, President Johnson ordered the release of Campbell, who then practiced law in New Orleans until his death in 1889.
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/tdgh-jun/jun24.htm
Portrait of John Archibald Campbell. Justice Campbell was Alabama's contribution to the United States Supreme Court during the antebellum period. He was married to Chief Justice Goldthwaite's sister. http://www.alalinc.net/library/tour_text/museum.cfm
Birth: Jun. 24, 1811
Washington Georgia
Death: Mar. 12, 1889
Baltimore Maryland
US Supreme Court Justice. Assistant Secretary of War, Confederate States of America (October 1861-April 1865).
Burial: Green Mount Cemetery Baltimore Baltimore city Maryland, USA
Lincoln's Meeting With Members of the Confederate Government at Hampton Roads, Va.
http://www.civilwarhome.com/Lincoln%20at%20Hampton%20Roads.htm
It was the Old Jacksonian Francis Preston Blair, as quixotic in his own way as Horace Greeley, who set up a meeting between Lincoln and Confederate commissioners. Convinced that he could reunite North and South by proposing a joint campaign to throw the french out of Mexico, Blair badgered Lincoln to give ham a pass through the lines to present this proposal to Jefferson Davis. Lincoln wanted nothing to do with Blair's hare-brained Mexican scheme, but he allowed him to go to Richmond what might develop. For his part, Davis anticipated nothing better from negotiations than the previous demands for "unconditional submission." But he saw an opportunity to fire up the waning southern heart by eliciting such demands publicly. Davis thus authorized Blair to inform Lincoln that he was ready to "enter into conference with a view to secure peace to the two countries." Lincoln responded promptly that he too was ready to receive overtures "with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country."
Hoping to discredit the peace movement by identifying it with humiliating surrender terms, Davis appointed a three-man commission consisting of prominent advocates of negotiations: Vice-President Stephens, President pro tem of the Senate Robert M.T. Hunter, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell, a former U.S. Supreme Court justice. Their proposed conference with William H. Seward, whom Lincoln had sent to Hampton Roads to meet with them, almost aborted because of the irreconcilable differences between the agendas for "two countries" and "our common country." But after talking with Stephens and Hunter and becoming convinced of their sincere desire for peace, General Grant telegraphed Washington that to send them home with a meeting would leave a bad impression. On the spur of the moment Lincoln decided to journey to Hampton Roads and join Seward for a face-to-face meeting with the Confederate commissioners.
This dramatic confrontation took place February 3 on the Union steamer "River Queen." Lincoln's earlier instructions to Seward formed the inflexible Union position during four hours of talks;
" (1) The restoration of the National authority throughout all the States.
(2) No receding by the Executive of the United States on the Slavery question.
(3) No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war, and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the government."
In vain did Stephens try to divert Lincoln by bringing up Blair's Mexican project. Equally unprofitable was Hunter's proposal for an armistice and a convention of states. No armistice, said Lincoln; surrender was the only means of stopping the war. But even Charles I, said Hunter, had entered into agreements with rebels in arms against his government during the English Civil War. "I do not profess to be posted in History." replied Lincoln. "All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles I, is, that he lost his head."
On questions of punishing rebel leaders and confiscating their property Lincoln promised generous treatment based on his power of pardon. On slavery he even suggested the possibility of compensating owners to the amount of $400 million (about 15 percent of the slaves' 1860 value). Some uncertainty exists about exactly what Lincoln meant in these discussions by "no receding....on the Slavery question." At a minimum he meant no going back on the Emancipation Proclamation or on other wartime executive and congressional actions against slavery. No slaves freed by these acts could ever be re-enslaved. But how many had been freed by them? Asked the southerners. All of the slaves in the Confederacy, or only those who had come under Union military control after the Proclamation was issued? As a war measure would it cease to operate with peace? That would be up to the courts, said Lincoln. And Seward informed the commissioners that the House of Representatives had just passed the Thirteenth Amendment. Its ratification woud make all other legal questions moot. If southern states returned to the Union and voted against ratification, thereby defeating it, would such action be valid? That remained to be seen, said Seward. In any case, remarked Lincoln, slavery as well as the rebellion was doomed. Southern leaders should cut their losses, return to the old allegiance, and save the blood of thousands of young men that would be shed if the war continued. Whatever their personal preferences, the commissioners had no power to negotiate such terms. They returned to dejectedly to Richmond.
John Archibald Campbell
Southern Moderate, 1811-1889
Robert Saunders, Jr.
Saunders presents the first full biography of the southern U.S. Supreme Court justice who championed both the U.S. Constitution and states' rights.
The life of John Archibald Campbell reflects nearly every major development of 19th-century American history. He participated either directly or indirectly in events ranging from the Indian removal process of the 1830s, to sectionalism and the Civil War, to Reconstruction and redemption. Although not a defender of slavery, he feared that abrupt abolition would produce severe economic and social dislocation. He urged southerners to reform their labor system and to prepare for the eventual abolition of slavery. In the early 1850s he proposed a series of reforms to strengthen slave families and to educate the slaves so as to prepare them for assimilation into society as productive citizens. These views distinguished him from many southerners who steadfastly maintained the sanctity of the peculiar institution.
Born and schooled in Georgia, Campbell moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the early 1830s, where he joined a successful law practice. He served in the Alabama legislature for a brief period and then moved with his family to Mobile to establish a law practice. In 1853 Campbell was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. His concurring opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857 derived not from the standpoint of protecting slavery but from an attempt to return political power to the states. As the sectional crisis gathered heat, Campbell counseled moderation. He became widely detested in the North because of his defense of states' rights, and he was distrusted in the South because of his moderate views on slavery and secession. In May 1861 Campbell resigned from the Court and later became the Confederacy's assistant secretary of war. After the war, Campbell moved his law practice to New Orleans. Upon his death in 1889, memorial speakers in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans recognized him as one of the nation's most gifted lawyers and praised his vast learning and mastery of both the common law and the civil law.
In this first full biography of Campbell, Robert Saunders, Jr., reveals the prevalence of anti-secession views prior to the Civil War and covers both the judicial aspects and the political history of this crucial period in southern history.
Robert Saunders, Jr., is an Instructor in the History Department at Auburn University at Montgomery. http://www.uapress.ua.edu/authors/saunders.html
_____________________________________
Remarks for Jewish Council for Public Affairs
in appreciation for the Albert D. Chernin Award
February 18, 2002
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Associate Justice
Supreme Court of the United States
Had Benjamin [Judah Benjamin, the first Jewish nominee to the Supreme Court] accepted the Court post, his service likely would have been shorter than the time I have already served as a Justice. In early 1861, in the wake of Louisiana's secession from the Union, Benjamin resigned the Senate seat for which he had forsaken the justiceship. He probably would have resigned a seat on the Court had he held one, as did his friend Associate Justice John Archibald Campbell of Alabama. (Campbell, incidentally, opposed secession and freed all his slaves on his appointment to the Supreme Court. But when hostilities broke out, he remained loyal to the South.)
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