Jeremiah
Sullivan Black was an American statesman and lawyer.
He was largely
self-educated, and before he was of age was admitted to the Pennsylvania
bar. He gradually became one of the leading American lawyers,
and from 1851 to 1857 was a member of the supreme court of Pennsylvania,
serving as Chief Justice from 1851 to 1854. In 1857 he entered
President James Buchanan's cabinet as Attorney General of the
United States.
In this capacity
he successfully contested the validity of the California land
claims to about 19,000 square miles (49,000 km²) of land,
fraudulently alleged to have been granted to land-grabbers and
others by the Mexican government prior to the close of the Mexican
War. From December 17, 1860 to March 4, 1861 he was U.S. Secretary
of State. Perhaps the most influential of President Buchanan's
official advisers, he denied the constitutionality of secession,
and urged that Fort Sumter be properly reinforced and defended.
President James
Buchanan nominated him for a seat on the Supreme Court, but his
nomination was defeated in the Senate by a single vote on February
21, 1861. He became reporter of decisions to the Supreme Court
of the United States in 1861, but after publishing the reports
for the years 1861 and 1862 he resigned, and devoted himself almost
exclusively to his private practice, appearing in such important
cases before the Supreme Court as the one known as Ex Parte Milligan,
in which he ably defended the right of trial by jury, Ex parte
McCardle, United States v. Blyew, 80 U.S. 581 (1871), et al.
After
the American Civil War he vigorously opposed the Congressional
plan of Reconstruction and drafted President Andrew Johnson's
message vetoing the Reconstruction Act of the March 2, 1867. Black
was also, for a short time, counsel for President Johnson in his
trial on his Article of Impeachment before the United States Senate,
and for William W. Belknap, United States Secretary of War from
1869 to 1876, who in 1876 was impeached on a charge of corruption;
he also represented Samuel J. Tilden during the contest for the
presidency between Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes. He died at
Brockie, Pennsylvania in 1883. |
