Jackson

JACKSON, HOWELL EDMUNDS (Apr. 8,
i832-Aug. 8, 1895), jurist, senator, brother of
William Hicks Jackson [q.vJ], was the son of
Dr. Alexander Jackson, a physician and a man
of culture and refinement, and his wife, Mary,
nee Hurt, daughter of a Baptist minister. Both
parents were Virginians who had settled in Ten-
nessee in 1830. Their son, born at Paris, Tenn.,
graduated from the West Tennessee College in
1849, studied at the University of Virginia in
1851-52, and graduated from the law school at
Lebanon, Tenn., in 1856. He began the practice
of law at Jackson but was in Memphis from 1858
until the outbreak of the Civil War. There, in
1859, he married Sophia Malloy. Coming of a
Whig family, he opposed secession, but after
Tennessee seceded he served the Confederacy
as receiver of sequestered property. In 1865 he
resumed his practice at Memphis, but later re-
turned to Jackson, and in April 1874, his first
wife having died, married Mary Harding of
Nashville.

Jackson was of rather small stature, quiet and
reserved in manner, but genial and companion-
able with his intimates and withal a man of ac-
curate learning, sound judgment, and strict in-
tegrity. His public career began with his elec-
tion to the legislature in 1880, as a Democrat, by
a narrow majority. When the legislature assem-
bled in 1881 to choose a United States senator
on joint ballot, bitter factional feeling made the
election of any of the several Democratic candi-
dates impossible; after days of balloting a Re-
publican member arose and, in a dramatic
speech, cast his vote for Jackson, who had not
been a candidate. State-credit Democrats and
Republicans followed, and Jackson was elected.
In the Senate, while not a conspicuous member,
he took high rank as a lawyer. He was still
enough of an old-line Whig not to accord al-
ways with a majority of his Democratic col-
leagues, as was shown by his notable speech in
favor of the Blair educational bill. Toward the
close of his term he was appointed by President
Cleveland to fill a vacancy on the federal bench
(6th circuit), and after some urging accepted
tie office as a matter of duty, resigning his Sen-
ate seat in 1886. In 1891, when the circuit court
of appeals was established at Cincinnati, he be-
came its first presiding judge. The work of the
bench was much more congenial to his tastes and
temperament than the turmoil of politics, and his
opinions soon made him known as among the
aMest of the circuit judges. In 1893, therefore,
when a justice of the United States Supreme
Court died just before Benjamin Harrison was
to be succeeded in the presidency by Grover

Jackson

Cleveland, Harrison, certain that any Republi-
can nominated would fail of confirmation by the
Democratic Senate, appointed Jackson, who took
his se."t Mar. 4, 1893. For some months he did
his full share of the work, but he developed tu-
berculosis and, although when the Court con-
vened in October 1894 he was in his place, his
growing weakness forced him from the bench
during most of that term. When the Income
Tax case (Pollock vs. Farmers' Loan &• Trust
Company) came on for argument in March 1895,
he was absent without any expectation of being
able to return. The remaining eight justices
were evenly divided in opinion and a reargu-
ment was ordered, whereupon Jackson, sum-
moning the last remnant of his strength, took
his place on the bench, expecting to cast the vote
which should decide the validity of the income
tax law. On reconsideration, however, one of
the other justices changed his opinion, and by
a vote of five to four the act was held unconstitu-
tional. Jackson's dissenting opinion (158 U. $.,
696) was delivered May 20,1895. He died at his
home near Nashville less than three months
later.

[J. W. Caldwell, Sketches of the Bench and Bar of
Tenn. (1898); W. S, Speer, Sketches of Prominent
Tennesseans (1888); J. T. Moore, Tennessee the Vol-
unteer State (1953), vol. II; Biog. Dir. Am. Cong.
(1928) ; In Memoriam, published in 1895 by the U. S.
Supreme Court; Nashville American, Aug. g, 1895.]

W.L.F.

JACKSON, JAMES (Sept. 21, i75;-Mar. 19,
1806), governor of Georgia and United States
senator, best known for his assault on the Yazoo
Land companies, was born at Moreton Hamp-
stead, Devonshire, England, the son of James
and Mary (Webber) Jackson. At the age of fif-
teen he emigrated to Georgia and was placed
under the protection of John Wereat, a Savan-
nah lawyer. His six years of military service
during the Revolution were rendered in the
Georgia state forces, and "impassioned ebr
quence" was one of his chief contributions to
the cause. He took part in the unsuccessful de-
fense of Savannah (1778), the battle of Cow-
pens, and the recovery of Augusta (1781). In
July 1782, at which time he held the rank of lieu-
tenant-colonel, he was ordered by General
Wayne to take possession of Savannah upon its
evacuation by the British. Three weeks later
the legislature of Georgia gave him a house and
lot in that town.

After studying law with George Walton [q.vJ]
he built up a practice that he estimated was
worth £3,000 a year by 1789. He served several
terms in the Georgia legislature, was appointed
colonel of the militia of Chatham County (1784)

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