Rufus Peckham | |
|---|---|
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| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
| In office January 6, 1896 – October 24, 1909[1] | |
| Nominated by | Grover Cleveland |
| Preceded by | Howell Edmunds Jackson |
| Succeeded by | Horace Harmon Lurton |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1838-11-08)November 8, 1838 Albany, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 24, 1909(1909-10-24) (aged 70) Altamont, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Signature | .png) |
Rufus W. Peckham[a] (November 8, 1838 – October 24, 1909) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as anAssociate Justice of theU.S. Supreme Court from 1896 to 1909, and is the most recent Democratic nominee approved by a Republican-majority Senate. He was known for his strong use ofsubstantive due process to invalidate regulations of business and property. Peckham's namesakefather was also a lawyer and judge, and aU.S. Representative. His older brother,Wheeler Hazard Peckham (1833–1905), was one of the lawyers who prosecutedWilliam M. Tweed and a failed nominee to the Supreme Court.
Peckham was born inAlbany, New York, toRufus Wheeler Peckham and Isabella Adeline Lacey;[6] his mother died when he was only nine. Following his graduation fromThe Albany Academy, he followed in his father's footsteps as a lawyer, being admitted to the bar in Albany in 1859 after teaching himself law by studying in his father's office. After a decade of private practice, Peckham served as the Albany district attorney from 1869 to 1872. Peckham then returned to private legal practice and served as counsel to the City of Albany, until being elected as a trial judge on theNew York Supreme Court in 1883. In 1886, Peckham was elected to theNew York Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state. While sitting as an associate judge on the Court of Appeals, Peckham also served as a member of theAlbany Law School Board of Trustees.[7] His appointment to the New York Court of Appeals was the third position that Peckham had held after his father, who had also served as the Albany D.A., on the New York Supreme Court, and finally on the Court of Appeals until his death in the 1873Ville du Havre sinking.[8]
Peckham was active in localDemocratic politics, and served as a New York delegate to the 1876Democratic National Convention. He was also a confidant to such tycoons asJ. Pierpont Morgan,Cornelius Vanderbilt, andJohn D. Rockefeller. Many believed these relationships predisposed Peckham to favor business interests while on the Supreme Court.[citation needed]
Rufus Peckham's brother Wheeler was a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court by PresidentGrover Cleveland, in 1894. However, this nomination was caught in the middle of a political tug-of-war between Cleveland andNew YorkSenatorDavid Hill, and Wheeler was the second nominee of Cleveland's that Hill managed to block; SenatorEdward Douglass White was instead confirmed to the Court. By the time another seat on the Court was vacant after the death ofHowell Edmunds Jackson in 1895, Hill was weakened politically and Cleveland turned to Rufus Peckham, who was confirmed within six days on December of that year (by a Republican-controlled Senate). He wassworn into office on January 6, 1896.[1] Peckham remains the last Supreme Court Justice seated by a Democratic president when the Senate had a Republican majority.
Peckham's stint on the Court has been called by many scholars the height oflaissez-faire constitutionalism, during which the Court regularly struck down efforts to regulate labor standards and relations. Peckham's most famous opinion was hismajority opinion inLochner v. New York (1905), in which the Court invalidated a limitation on bakers' working hours to sixty per week as being contrary to the individual right to freely contract, and as being unnecessary to protect health or safety. In the same opinion, Peckham upheld other workplace regulations relating to baker's facilities that he did believe justified limitations on the freedom of contract.
BeyondLochner, Peckham is best known for expansively interpreting theSherman Antitrust Act as prohibiting all restraints of trade, rather than only those already blocked under existing common law.[9] His opinions on civil rights forAfrican Americans are remarkable only for the abandonment of his usualanti-statism in voting to upholdJim Crow laws–– the most notable beingPlessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which he silently joined the majority. On the other hand, he and JusticeDavid Josiah Brewer were far more likely than any of their colleagues to vote in favor of Chinese litigants in the many immigration cases that came before the Court.[citation needed]
Justice Peckham authored the landmark decision inEx parte Young (1908), which held that a federal court may issue aninjunction against a State officer to prevent the enforcement of an invalid State law.
Peckham served on the Court until his death from cardiovascular disease on October 24, 1909, at age 70, writing 303 opinions and dissenting only nine times.[citation needed] His death came during what biographer Willard King calls "[p]erhaps the worst year in the history of the Court" – the term from October 1909 to May 1910 – when two justices died, the other beingDavid J. Brewer, and another justice,William Henry Moody, became fully incapacitated, while Chief JusticeMelville Fuller's health declined.[10]
He was buried inAlbany Rural Cemetery inMenands, New York, later to be joined by his wife, Harriette Maria Arnold (December 13, 1839 - July 25, 1917). They outlived both of their sons: Henry Arnold (August 6, 1868 – February 16, 1907) and Rufus W. Jr. (January 28, 1870 – September 16, 1899). Mrs. Peckham was also the paternal aunt of heiress Dorothy Arnold, whosedisappearance on December 12, 1910 was referenced, in 1928, as "the great search of the age" byUnited Press Associations (now UPI).[11]
Hon Rufus William Peckham of New York born in 1838 commissioned by President Cleveland.
Rufus William Peckham of the U.S. Supreme Court [contemporary photo caption]
Rufus William Peckham jurist born at Albany NY November 8, 1838.
PECKHAM RUFUS WILLIAM 1838 1909 An American jurist brother of Wheeler Hazard Peckham. He was born in Albany NY and was educated at the Albany Academy and in Philadelphia Admitted to the bar in 1859 a year later he succeeded his father as law partner of Lyman Tremain. On Tremain's death in 1878 the firm became Peckham and Rosendale. For three years Peckham served as district attorney of Albany County He was counsel to the Albany.
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| Preceded by | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1896–1909 | Succeeded by |
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