Will nitwits rule us all?

I moved to Minnesota during an election year. I was not particularly thrilled about the results of that particular election on either a nationwide or statewide level. Most of the candidates that I liked lost that year. But since I had not done much work on any candidates' election, I figured that I should not complain about the results given that I had not put any effort for my folks to win.

The United States is Still Paying a Veteran's Pension ...

... to the child of a Civil War vet.

The last full measure of devotion.

150 years ago today 215 men from Minnesota saved our country. In doing so, 83% of them were killed or wounded. Among the survivors of that group was future United States District Court Judge for the District of Minnesota William Lochren. He described receiving the order to charge, this way:

Every man realized in an instant what that order meant-death or wounds to us all, the sacrifice of the regiment to gain a few minutes time and save the position, and probably the battlefield-and every man saw and accepted the necessity for the sacrifice.

That was 150 years ago. Every one of those men is long dead. Probably every person who ever met any of those men is also dead. We have not talked much about the Civil War on this blog. But 150 years ago today was probably the most important day of that war. It would not hurt to remember that war today and say a thank you that Judge Lochren and his fellow soldiers fought as gallantly as they did.

Children of civil war veterans live amongst us.

The AP did a story about how the costs of war can linger on.   You can read it here.  As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, I was surprised to see that the government pays $876 per year in survivor benefits to two disabled children of Civil War Veterans. 

How many traitors have served on the Supreme Court?

As I am sure you know, this year marks the start of the Civil War's sesquicentennial. As part of the celebration, the New York Times has started the "Disunion" blog. "Disunion" attempts to cover the events of the war from the perspective of what happened 150 years ago on the date of the posting. It is an interesting blog. Although, it does not capture my imagination the same way that the "Bicentennial Minute" did when I was 9 (I wish those were on DVD).

Anyway, last night the Disunion entry for April 29th caught my eye. Ostensibly, the post is the story of Thomas Dwight Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher who served with Company G of the 11th Mississippi Infantry. The article contains this paragraph:

Witherspoon enlisted in the Lamar Rifles, a local militia company named for Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, a member of the House of Representatives who resigned to join the Mississippi Secession Convention. Lamar drafted the ordinance that severed ties with the Union. He went on to serve in the Confederate army and government; later, despite his secessionist activities, President Grover Cleveland appointed him to the Supreme Court.

(emphasis mine). I read the highlighted sentence and thought, "Wait, what? The guy who drafted Mississippi's secession ordinance was appointed to the Supreme Court after the war?" Turns out the Times is correct. Not only did Justice Lamar draft the secession ordinance, check out this quote he made about the Confederacy. According to the Wikipedia page about Justice Lamar, the Ken Burns documentary "The Civil War" quotes Justice Lamar as saying this about Mississippi's secession, "Thank God, we have a country at last: to live for, to pray for, and if need be, to die for." Apparently prior to secession, Justice Lamar, who was a member of Congress until Mississippi left the Union, did not think the antebellum United States was a country worth living for, praying for, or dying for.

This got me wondering, what cases did this traitor to his country help decide? As Justice Lamar served from 1888 to 1893, he was an associate justice for the last year of the Waite Court and the first five years of the Fuller Court.

The Waite Court issued a number of cases that we read in law school. It is responsible for such classics as Pennoyer v. Neff, United States v. Cruikshank, and the Civil Rights Cases. However, by the time Justice Lamar joined the Waite Court, its most famous decisions were behind it. Unless you are a patent lawyer.

The Fuller Court is most famous for Plessy v. Ferguson. However, Justice Lamar was dead when that case was decided, so we can't blame him for that. During the brief time that Justice Lamar served, the Court's most notable decision was Davis v. Beason, which upheld a law requiring voters to swear that they did not belong to organizations that promoted polygamy from a First Amendment challenge. It also decided Nix v. Hedden which found that tomatoes, while not a de facto vegetable, are a de jure vegetable.

Learning about Justice Lamar also made me wonder if any other people who betrayed the Union later served on the court after the war. It turns out that three other justices either fought in the Confederate Army or had roles in governing the Confederate States of America. One of them, Edward Douglas White, was actually named Chief Justice by President Taft. Another, Horace Lurton, was apparently paroled from a Union prisoner of war camp due to the intervention of President Lincoln. The third, Howell Jackson, was appointed by Benjamin Harrison. Thus, it came to pass a former brigadier general in the Union Army (and grandson of a hero of the War of 1812) appointed to the Supreme Court a guy who once served the Confederate States of America as a receiver of property confiscated from Unionists during the Civil War and whose brother was a Confederate brigadier-general. Justice Jackson was appointed to replace Justice Lamar and Justice Lurton was appointed to the same seat following the death of Justice Rufus Wheeler Peckhamm(who was appointed to replace Jackson). Maybe this seat was viewed as the "Confederate Seat" or something.

Justice Lurton served on the court at the same time as Justice Holmes. One wonders what Justice Holmes, who was wounded three times while serving in the Union Army and who kept his blood stained uniform and the bullets that wounded him until his death in 1935, thought of serving on the court with somone whose rebellion caused his wounds.

I don't know about you but I find it very odd that these people were appointed. I would like to say that the Reconstruction policies that allowed these former rebels to fully participate in American life after the war were a merciful thing. However, I can't really do that because letting people who secceded from the Union back in power directly led to the creation of the Jim Crow era in the South. So what do we call it, misguided mercy?