John Catron
| John Catron | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court | |
| In office March 8, 1837[1] – May 30, 1865 | |
| Nominated by | Andrew Jackson |
| Preceded by | (none) |
| Succeeded by | (none) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 7, 1786 Wythe County, Virginia |
| Died | May 30, 1865 (aged 79) Nashville, Tennessee |
| Religion | Presbyterian |
John Catron (January 7, 1786 – May 30, 1865) was an American jurist who served as a US Supreme Court justice from 1837 to 1865.
Early life
Little is known of Catron's early life. He was born in Montgomery County (later Wyeth County), Virginia to Peter (Catron) Kettering, who had immigrated as a child with his parents from Mittelbrun in the German Palatinate, as part of the extensive migration to North America of Germans and Swiss from the Palatinate and Hesse at that time. His mother was Maria Elizabetha Houck, whose parents were also Palatine Germans; they had settled in Virginia by way of Pennsylvania. He had a single sibling, a sister Mary who later married Thomas Swift and moved to Missouri and, ultimately, Oregon. He was a second cousin to Thomas Benton Catron, later one of the first two senators of the state of New Mexico. Catron's father had served in Captain William Doack's militia company in Montgomery County, Virginia during the Revolutionary War.
The family relocated to Kentucky in the first years of the 19th century. Catron served in the War of 1812 under Andrew Jackson. He read law and was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1815. He was married to Mathilda Childress, sister of George C Childress who was one of the political leaders of the Texas Republic and chaired the committee that drafted the Constitution of the Republic of Texas. John and Mathilda Catron had no children.
Law career
Catron was in private practice at Sparta in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee from 1815 to 1818, while simultaneously serving as a prosecuting attorney of that city. He established a land law practice in Nashville in 1818, in which he continued until 1824.
From 1824-1834, Catron was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, being elevated to Chief Justice of that court in 1831. In 1834, the Tennessee state legislature abolished the chief justice position, and Catron retired and returned to private practice in Nashville. During the election of 1836, Catron directed Martin Van Buren's presidential campaign in Tennessee against native son Hugh Lawson White.
In 1836 Congress, by 5 Stat. 176, expanded the United States Supreme Court from seven to nine members. This allowed then-President Andrew Jackson an opportunity to name two new justices on March 3, 1837, his last full day in office. Catron was the only one of Jackson's nominees to accept. The newly seated Senate of the subsequent Congress confirmed Catron's appointment five days later. He took the judicial oath on May 1, 1837.[2]
Catron served as an associate justice until his death in 1865 at age 79.
Catron supported slavery and sided with the majority in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. But, he opposed secession and urged Tennessee to remain with the Union. For a brief time after Tennessee seceded from the Union but prior to Nashville being occupied by Federal troops, Catron left his residence in Nashville and temporarily lived in Louisville, Kentucky.
A slaveholder all his adult life, Catron had a relationship with Sally, a Tennessee slave in her 30s who had a laundry in Nashville and was held by the Thomas family. Catron fathered her third mixed-race son, whom she named James P. Thomas. In his lifetime, Catron gave Thomas 25 cents. James was born into slavery but when he was six, his mother effectively bought his freedom.[3] She was unable to gain full manumission for him then, but he gained an education and successfully built a business as a barber in Nashville. Because of his achievements, in 1851 he gained manumission as well as permission from the Tennessee legislature to stay in the state. Later he owned property in St. Louis, Missouri valued at $250,000.[4] Thomas was Catron's only known child.
Catron died in 1865 in Nashville, Tennessee. He is interred at Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery.
After Catron's death, Congress eliminated his seat under the Judicial Circuits Act from the Court as a way to prevent President Andrew Johnson, who barely escaped impeachment, from appointing any justices.
References
- ↑ "Federal Judicial Center: John Catron". 2009-12-09. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
- ↑ "Members of the Supreme Court (1789 to Present)". Retrieved 2009-12-16.
- ↑ [B. Peterson] (2012-06-17). accessdate = 2012-6-17 "The Original Deadbeat Dads". Retrieved 2012-06-17.
- ↑ Loren Schweninger, "A Slave Family in the Ante-Bellum South,” Journal of Negro History 60(January 1975):29-44
- John Catron, 1837-1865, Supreme Court Historical Society.
- John Catron, Oyez-Supreme Court Multimedia.
- John Catron at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
- Kegley, Mary B. "Militia of Montgmery County, Virginia 1777-1790," Kegley Books, (1974)
- Westphall, Victor. "Thomas Benton Catron and His Era," University of Arizona Press(1973)
- Peterson, James B. The Original Deadbeat Dads, Dominion of New York (2012)
Further reading
- Timothy S. Huebner, The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1780-1890 (1999).
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by None (New Seat) |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States March 8, 1837 – May 30, 1865 |
Succeeded by None (Seat Abolished) |
