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Walter McKenzie Clark, 1846-1924

Source: From DICTIONARY OF NORTH CAROLINA BIOGRAPHY edited by William S. Powell. Copyright (c) 1979-1996 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.unc.edu

Walter McKenzie Clark (19 Aug. 1846-20 May 1924), chief justice of thesupreme court, was born at Prospect Hill plantation in HalifaxCounty. His father was David Clark II, a wealthy planter and abrigadier general in the North Carolina militia during the CivilWar. His mother was Anna Maria Thorne of Halifax County. WalterClark spent most of his boyhood at Ventosa, his father's plantationon the Roanoke River. At eight years of age Clark went to Vine HillAcademy near Clarksville. In 1857 he attended Ridgeway School underthe supervision of Professor William K. Bass, and in 1859 hestudied with Professor Ralph H. Graves at Belmont School inGranville County. Clark entered Colonel C. C. Tew's MilitaryAcademy in Hillsborough in August 1860.

In May of 1861 Clark was selected to drill the state's firstgroup of recruits for the Civil War. He went with the Twenty-secondNorth Carolina Regiment when it was sent to Virginia later thatyear. He joined Colonel Matt W. Ransom's Thirty-fifth NorthCarolina Regiment in August 1862 and served as adjutant and firstlieutenant. Clark witnessed the Second Battle of Manassas andparticipated in the capture of Harper's Ferry and the battles ofSharpsburg and Fredericksburg. When his regiment returned to NorthCarolina in February 1863, Clark resigned his commission andcontinued his education at The University of North Carolina. Hestudied with President David L. Swain and Professor William H.Battle and graduated first in his class in June 1864. The day aftercommencement Clark was elected major of the Sixth Battalion, NorthCarolina Junior Reserves; he fought the next year within the stateand became lieutenant colonel of the Seventieth Regiment.

After the war Clark managed the family's plantation because hisfather was in poor health and he also supervised the Riversideplantation near New Bern, which his father had given him. In thelate 1860s Clark supported industrialization for the South,advocated the importation of free white labor, and urgedSoutherners to get to work and forget the Lost Cause. He studiedlaw on Wall Street in New York and at Columbia Law School inWashington, D.C., in 1866. In 1867 he received his license topractice law in Halifax County and opened his law office inScotland Neck. The next year he was licensed to practice law beforethe supreme court. The University of North Carolina awarded theincreasingly prosperous and prominent lawyer a M.A. in 1867. Duringthe summer of 1871 Clark traveled widely in the American West. Helived briefly in Halifax in 1872 before moving to Raleigh in 1873.In the capital Clark practiced law, managed the RaleighNews, and served as a director and general counsel for the Raleigh andGaston and the Raleigh and Augusta railroads

When he moved to Raleigh, Clark joined the Methodist church. Hisfather and most of the Clark family were Episcopalians, but hismother had joined the Methodist church shortly before her marriage.As an active Methodist, Clark wrote about the church's history,spoke at Trinity College in 1880 on the philosophy of religion, andattended many church meetings. In 1881 he represented the SouthernMethodist Episcopal Church at the Ecumenical Conference ofMethodism at London. At that time he traveled extensively inEurope. He was a delegate to the church's General Conference at St.Louis in 1890 and at Memphis in 1894.

Clark had a deep interest in North Carolina's history and laws.In 1882 he publishedEverybody's Book, Some Points in Law ofInterest and Use to North Carolina Farmers, Merchants, and BusinessMen Generally. He compiled an annotatedCode of CivilProcedure of North Carolina, which appeared in 1884 and becameknown asClark's Code. He compiled and edited theStateRecords of North Carolina (16 vols., 1886-97). Clark alsoedited theHistories of the Several Regiments and Battalionsfrom North Carolina, in the Great War 1861-1865 (5vols., 1901). He annotated over one hundred volumes ofNorthCarolina Reports of the state supreme court.

In April 1885, Governor Alfred M. Scales appointed Clark a judgeof the superior courts; he was elected to the post in November1886. Three years later Governor Daniel G. Fowle named Clark anassociate justice of the supreme court. The following year Clarkwon election to the unexpired term. In 1894 he was nominated by theDemocratic party and endorsed by both the Populist and Republicanparties for a full term on the supreme court. He won unanimously.In 1896 he refused the Democratic nomination for governor and choseto remain on the bench. In the same year, Clark, a supporter offree silver, received fifty votes for vice-president at theDemocratic national convention.

For several years around the turn of the century, Clark wasembroiled in many controversies. He attacked the American TobaccoCompany for violating the Sherman antitrust law and argued that itunfairly destroyed competitors and mistreated farmers. He exposedthe evils of the state's powerful railroads, the Southern, theAtlantic Coast Line, and the Seaboard. Clark charged that theyissued illegal passes, set exorbitant rates, received unfair taxvaluations, lobbied in the legislature, and interfered in statepolitics. In dissenting opinions, speeches, articles, and letters,Clark criticized the control over government exercised by banks,trusts, and railroads. In addition, he advocated many socialreforms: postal savings banks, one-cent letter postage, popularelection of senators, election of postmasters, an income tax, andwoman suffrage. A. L. Brooks and Hugh T. Lefler called Clark"probably the most outspoken man in North Carolina or the South inadvocating economic and social reforms." Clark alsoenthusiastically supported the Spanish-American war.

In 1897-98 Clark, a member of Trinity College's board oftrustees since 1889, clashed with President John C. Kilgo ofTrinity. Part of the controversy resulted from Clark's oppositionto Kilgo's proposal to elect faculty members for four-year terms. Alarger issue involved Kilgo's close relationship with the Dukes andthe tobacco trust, which Clark strongly opposed. The two men alsodiffered regarding state aid to higher education, because Kilgojoined the forces opposing state aid to The University of NorthCarolina while Clark supported The University of North Carolina. Inthe end Kilgo won the battle and Clark resigned from the board oftrustees.

In 1902 Walter Clark sought the Democratic nomination for chiefjustice of the supreme court. The railroads, the American TobaccoCompany, and most of the state's newspapers opposed Clark'scandidacy. His strongest supporter was Josephus Daniels and theRaleighNews and Observer. After a bitter fight and astirring nominating speech by Claude Kitchin, Clark won theDemocratic convention's nomination. He was elected and laterreelected to two additional terms. Clark served on the supremecourt for thirty-five years and wrote 3,235 opinions. He made thecourt work efficiently, orderly, and promptly and was prominent inadvocating the construction of a new building for the court.

In 1912 Clark fought three of the state's most powerful figuresfor the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate: Governor W. W.Kitchin, former governor Charles B. Aycock, and incumbent SenatorFurnifold M. Simmons. Candidate Clark advocated destruction of thetrusts, popular election of senators and federal judges, a tarifffor revenue only, initiative, referendum, recall (except forjudges), child labor laws, more public schools, extension of goodroads, and the operation of telephone and telegraph by the postoffice department. After the death of Aycock, Simmons aimed hiscampaign against Clark because Kitchin posed little threat. Simmonswon easily and Clark received only about ten percent of thevote.

After his defeat Clark continued to battle for "socializeddemocracy" in his many opinions, articles, addresses, and letters.He was a forceful supporter of woman's suffrage and served as legaladviser to the North Carolina League of Women Voters. He defendedlabor's right to organize and favored workmen's compensation lawsand the eight hour day. He called for the abolition of the poll taxand an end to lynchings. Clark approved municipal ownership ofutilities and advocated nationalization of coal mines, oilreserves, and water power sites.

Appointed by President Wilson, Clark served as an umpire for theNational War Labor Board in 1917-18. Clark was president ofthe North Carolina State Literary and Historical Association in1902. For many years he was chairman of the judiciary committee ofthe North Carolina Grand Lodge of Masons. Clark led the efforts tohave the two dates, 20 May 1775 and 12 Apr. 1776, placed on thestate flag and to have the state adopt as its motto,Esse QuamVideri.

Clark was married on 27 Jan. 1875 to Susan Washington Graham,daughter of William A. Graham, governor of North Carolina, U.S.Senator, and secretary of the navy. Their children were Susan,David, John Washington, Graham McKenzie, Walter, Thorne McKenzie,and Eugenia. Clark was buried in Raleigh. His portrait hangs in theSupreme Court Building and his papers are in the statearchives.

David Clark
Charles W. Eagles

SEE: Aubrey Lee Brooks,Walter Clark, Fighting Judge(1944); Aubrey Lee Brooks and Hugh T. Lefler, eds.,The Papersof Walter Clark, 2 vols. (1948, 1950).

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