by Daniel J. Meador

On January 18, 1888, a new justice took his seat on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar. No other justice in the history of the Court has carried such ponderous Roman names, and few justices, if any, have had more controversial and colorful backgrounds. The seating of Lamar on the court is important in American history because it was the last step toward national reconciliation and reunion in the long aftermath of the Civil War. It was an event of great symbolic significance, but it came about only after a difficult struggle over Senatorial confirmation. Had Lamar’s nomination to the Supreme Court been defeated, as it almost was, the "bloody shirt" tactics–that is, the political use of sectional antagonism stemming from the war–would have continued as a factor in American political life. I propose here to tell the story of the contest over Lamar's confirmation.

The story opens in 1887 Grover Cleveland, the first Democratic president since the Civil War, was serving his first term in the White House. For over a decade ex-Confederate officers had been in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and they now sat in the Cabinet. However, no Southerner had yet been placed on the Supreme Court, an institution viewed as being peculiarly sensitive because of its ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution. But now President Cleveland proposed to take this last step toward restoring Southerners to the councils of the nation by putting forward a man who had played a leading part in the "rebellion' as the secession movement was called in the North.

L. Q. C. Lamar was an unusual figure, even on the crowded and colorful stage of the 19th century. He was born in Georgia, the son of a judge and a member of a large and talented family. After graduating from Emory college, he studied law and was admitted to the Georgia Bar. He later moved to Oxford, Mississippi, and was elected to Congress shortly before the Civil War. At the outbreak of the war he was commissioned a Colonel in a Mississippi regiment and was in command of troops at the Battle of Williamsburg in May, 1862. Jefferson Davis then appointed him Confederate Minister to Russia, but because of the international political climate he never reached St. Petersburg. Instead, he spent several months in London and Paris working with the Confederate diplomatic missions to secure recognition of the Confederacy. Returning to America he undertook various political assignments and then became a judge on a military court and was with the Army of Northern Virginia at its surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. He went back to Oxford and became Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi for several years. He then reentered the House of Representatives and was later elected as United States Senator from Mississippi. President Cleveland appointed him Secretary of the Interior at the beginning of his term in 1885.

Lamar's personality was a mixture of contrasting elements. Over the years observers described him variously as dreamy, gloomy, warm, generous, detached, aloof One woman spoke of the "witchery of his presence." At times he could be gregarious and friendly; at other times he would be distant, scarcely recognizing those whom he encountered. He had a marked oratorical ability; he could hold a crowd spellbound. He was what we in the late twentieth century would probably call charismatic.[1]

Lamar burst on to the national scene shortly after he was reelected to Congress in the early 1870's. The occasion was the death of Charles Sumner, a Senator from Massachusetts. Before the war Sumner had been among the most outspoken of the abolitionists, and after the war he had been a leader in the congressionally imposed Reconstruction, a program that displaced the more lenient program of President Andrew Johnson.

Few, if any, men were more disliked in the South than Sumner. In the memorial proceedings held in the House of Representatives shortly after his death, Lamar rose to speak. He startled the assemblage by not voicing the standard Southern criticism of Sumner but rather by praising the man. He lauded Sumner's intellect and his desire to extend human freedom to all. He proceeded then to call on the North and the South to put old sectional animosities behind and to move forward together toward a new day. He closed with a statement widely quoted thereafter: "My countrymen, know one another and you will love one another."[2] This speech had an electrifying effect across the North and Midwest, and it established Lamar as a leading spokesman for reconciliation and reunion, a theme that he pursued throughout the remainder of his public career.

Lamar was serving in the President's Cabinet when in May, 1887, Supreme Court Justice William B. Woods died. Woods, a native of Ohio, had served in the Union Army as a Brigadier General and had settled in Alabama after the war, where he practiced law and tried his hand at cotton planting. Grant had appointed him United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit, and Hayes had elevated him to the Supreme Court where he sat for seven years until his death.[3] Woods was viewed as holding a "Southern seat" on the Court, though he was recognized as not being a genuine Southerner. Thus, it was widely assumed that the vacancy would be filled by someone from the deep South, particularly since the White House was occupied by a Democrat for the first time since the war.

Geography almost dictated this. The Court was then composed of Chief Justice Waite of Ohio and Associate Justices Miller of Iowa, Field of California, Bradley of New Jersey, Harlan of Kentucky, Matthews of Ohio, Gray of Massachusetts, and Blatchford of New York. Political realities being what they were, the appointment of anyone but a Democrat from the South was hardly to be expected. And in 1887 a southern Democrat of sufficient age and standing to be given serious consideration would almost certainly have been active in the Confederacy.

This reality was tacitly recognized around the country, and in the weeks following Woods' death there was no outspoken opposition to such an appointment. After all, two former Confederates–Lamar himself and Augustus H. Garland, a former Senator from Arkansas–had been in the Cabinet for over two years and were generally respected. It was known that Garland wanted the appointment,[4] and as Attorney General he appeared a likely prospect.[5] There were, of course, many others put forward. The Mississippian prominently urged at first was Senator James Z. George, perhaps the most powerful man politically in the state at that time. He had the desirable background of an extensive law practice and service as Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court. Lamar, as a Senator in 1877, had urged President Hayes to appoint George to the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice David Davis. Lamar had represented to Hayes that George was a "man of vast legal requirements ... a profound jurist" and that he stood at the head of the legal profession in Mississippi. He knew few men, Lamar said, "so admirably fitted to that exalted position."[6] No evidence has been uncovered, however, to indicate that Lamar ever spoke to Cleveland about the appointment of George, and Cleveland seems to have shown no interest in the idea.

Indeed it is probable that from the time the President began to think of the vacancy after Woods' death, the person he had most in mind was Lamar. The first public "leak" seems to have come in early June, some three weeks after Woods' death. Congressman William C. Oates of Alabama had talked to the President at that time and thereafter told the newspapers that the Supreme Court appointment would go to the South. Oates said, "I feel quite certain that if Secretary Lamar desired the position he could get it. The President, I know, has the very highest opinion of Lamar. He told me so himself I heard him say that Secretary Lamar had the clearest and most comprehensive intellect that he had ever known."[7] The suggestion of Lamar for the Court was picked up by the press and was commented on favorably during the summer months of 1887 However, Cleveland made no public statements on the matter. During much of 1887 he was absorbed with the tariff problem and the preparation of his message to Congress on that subject to be delivered at the opening of the session in December. In July he was in New York State for a while, and he was preparing for an extensive western and southern trip in the fall.[8]

Lamar meanwhile carried on at the Interior Department. Cleveland had not yet spoken to him about the Court vacancy. He had been told, however, by persons who had talked with the President that his intention was to offer Lamar the appointment.[9] Lamar also had learned that Garland, who considered himself a candidate, was objecting to Lamar on the ground that he was "not a practical lawyer and not fit for the ordinary business and drudgery of the position."[10] Senator George Vest, a Democrat from Missouri, was also making what Lamar considered "a very good objection"–that at 62 he was too old.[11]

Whether Lamar really wanted the appointment is not clear. He was not altogether happy as head of the Interior Department. Beset by office seekers, working long hours every day, including many holidays, he was being worn down by the administrative responsibilities. It has been suggested that he desired to go on the Court simply as an escape.[12] He was not campaigning for the Court, however, and he even wrote one of his friends to discourage his getting others to write the President. "If the position is offered me, I wish it done from the promptings of the President's free and unconstrained choice, and in accordance with the spontaneous and unsolicited manifestation of public opinion."[13] His feelings appear to have been mixed. He had misgivings because he did not feel himself "fully equipped to be a Judge of the Supreme Court."[14] But Lamar underrated his own abilities throughout his life and often considered himself a failure. One suspects that by midsummer, after hearing indirectly for weeks that he was to be Cleveland's choice, Lamar had become enamoured with the idea of going on the Court and that he would have been disappointed had he been passed over. In any event, at the end of July he confided to his close friend and former law partner, Senator Edward C. Walthall, that he was inclined "to think that the President's mind has been pretty well made up to offer me the place."[15]

On the morning of August 17 Cleveland talked with Lamar and told him directly for the first time, as Lamar related it, "that he was considering gravely the propriety of offering me the Judgeship on the Supreme Bench."[16] Such a move, however, would create a problem for Cleveland–the selection of a new Secretary of the Interior. He and Lamar discussed this and they agreed that the best choice would be William F Vilas, then Postmaster General. At Cleveland's suggestion, Lamar was to communicate with Vilas, who was at his home in Wisconsin, and get his reaction to this shift in cabinet positions. This Lamar did, carrying on correspondence from Bethlehem, New Hampshire, where he had gone for a vacation after his conversation with Cleveland. It was September 10 before Lamar could write back to Cleveland with word that Vilas would be willing to take over the Interior Department.[17] This in turn raised for Cleveland the further question of a new Postmaster General, a perplexing matter which caused him to wonder whether he should leave the vacancy on the Court unfilled for a while.[18]

Because the Senate had not been in session since March, and would not convene again until December, Cleveland could have put Lamar on the Supreme Court under a recess appointment.[19] Nothing indicates whether this was given any consideration, however, and in any event it was not done even though the Court was convening in October with only eight Justices and a docket approaching flood tide, a condition resulting four years later in the Evarts Act, creating the circuit courts of appeals.[20]

By late September it was generally understood that Cleveland had settled on Lamar as his Supreme Court nominee and that his name would be sent to the Senate when it met in December. This was not really news because it had been rumored all summer. Confirmation seemed almost a formality in light of the favorable reaction registered thus far in the press. Moreover, almost half of the Republican Senators had congratulated Lamar on his selection and indicated their support.[21] After all, he had already been confirmed for the Cabinet and that, in a sense, had pulled the sting of his Confederate background.

But then politics entered the picture. It seems to have occurred to persons within the Republican Party that Lamar's nomination presented a potential issue worth exploiting. A presidential election would take place in the following year, 1888, and it was none too soon to begin looking ahead. The tactic to be adopted was, in short, the "bloody shirt." This had worked over and again for the Republicans for two decades, with the exception of Cleveland's election three years before. But apparently that election was not convincing evidence that the "bloody shirt" had lost its efficacy. There had been a recent fresh eruption of this sentiment in June when Cleveland had entered an order for the return of captured Confederate battle flags to the Southern states. The adverse emotional outburst which that provoked across the North lent support to the view that there was still political mileage in the Civil War. In September, for the first time, editorials began to appear in Republican newspapers, notably the New York Tribune, attacking the Lamar nomination. These continued desultorily throughout the fall. The full-scale assault was to be mounted after Congress convened. The prospects of a straight party fight were indeed threatening to the Lamar appointment because of the extraordinarily close division in the Senate: thirty-eight Republicans, thirty-seven Democrats, and one Independent.

The Fiftieth Congress opened on December 5,1887 A week later the President sent to the Senate a group of nominations. At the head of the list: "Lucius Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi, to be associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in place of William B. Woods, deceased."[22] Also included were nominations of Vilas to be Secretary of the Interior and Don M. Dickinson of Michigan to be Postmaster General. The President had evidently stood by his conclusions reached in September. If the newspaper campaign against Lamar during the fall had impressed him at all, it had not been sufficient to change his mind. Chances are that he dismissed it as simply party politics on the eve of an election year. From the first, Cleveland had determined that the Supreme Court appointment would go to a Southerner, and Lamar had probably been his first choice from the outset, a decision from which he was not likely to be shaken.

When Cleveland was in Atlanta in October, he and Henry Grady, editor of The Atlanta Constitution, had chatted about Lamar. Grady said that Lamar was the best equipped man the South had given to the public, living or dead. Cleveland agreed that he was "certainly the best of the living men." Then Cleveland paid Lamar what comes close to being the ultimate tribute by one man about another's judgment: "His temperament is such that when he considers a question he is obliged to decide it right. I have never seen this quality so marked in any other man. The truth is, his mind and his heart are right, and he cannot decide anything wrong."[23]

In the Senate Lamar's nomination was referred routinely to the Judiciary Committee, made up of five Republicans and four Democrats. The chairman was George F Edmunds of Vermont who had been in the Senate since the close of the war. Edmunds was an unwavering Republican, and the lines had been clearly drawn between him and Lamar on numerous issues in the Senate. Yet he had a warm feeling personally for Lamar. When Lamar's first wife had died only three years before, Edmunds had written two touching notes of sympathy. In one he commented to Lamar that "Such men as you have great duties, for they are given great powers which they have no right to leave unused."[24] On the confirmation issue, however, Republican Party policy would control his position. The other Republicans on the Committee were J. J. Ingalls of Kansas, George F Hoar of Massachusetts, James F Wilson of Iowa, and William M. Evarts of New York. Lamar had served in the Senate with all of them except Evarts, who by this time had become a preeminent member of the bar, representing large business interests.

The Democrats on the committee had also been in the Senate with Lamar and knew him well. They were James L. Pugh of Alabama, Richard Coke of Texas, George G. Vest of Missouri, and J. Z. George of Mississippi. It seems to have been taken for granted that the Democrats would be solidly for Lamar. Though Vest had voiced initial objection on the ground of age, once the nomination was made, a united front was presented. Thus the question was whether the Republicans would likewise stick together.

There was no problem on either side of the aisle about other Senators' being acquainted with Lamar. Nearly all of them knew him personally, as he had left his seat there less than three years before. His closest friends were, of course, Democrats–men such as Wade Hampton of South Carolina, John T Morgan of Alabama, Daniel W Voorhees of Indiana, and his successor and former law partner, Edward C. Walthall of Mississippi. But Republican votes were needed. There were some that could pretty clearly be counted against him, men such as John Sherman of Ohio. On the other hand, there was a good deal of respect for Lamar in the North, and unless the party line could be laid down rigidly, he could expect some Republican support. After all, in September, before the attack against him had been launched, he had been assured of backing from nearly half. The margin seemed comfortable then. But as the year 1887 drew to a close and the issue was becoming more sharply focused, the margin was shrinking. In the end, every vote would count. For confirmation Lamar would need all the Democratic votes plus two more.

Attention was naturally focused on the one Independent, Harrison Holt Riddleberger of Virginia. A lawyer from Woodstock, he was a product of the "Readjustor" movement which swept Virginia in the seventies and eighties, and he was elected to the Senate on that ticket in 1881. The Administration's hope was that he could be counted on because he, like Lamar, was a Confederate veteran and had been a Democratic elector on the Tilden ticket in 1876. But as December wore on he had not committed himself Even with Riddleberger at least one Republican vote would be necessary to break a tie in favor of confirmation.

The majority of the Judiciary Committee was in no haste to act. The Democrats suspected that time was being allowed for the Lamar opposition to build up steam. The newspaper campaign was apparently beginning to take effect. Letters and resolutions began to come into the committee from the North and Midwest. The Garfield Club of Columbus, Ohio, resolved that Lamar's nomination "is disrespectful to every man who fought for the preservation of the Union."[25] The Lincoln League of Kokomo, Indiana, recited in its resolution that Lamar had often declared "that the success of the Union arms in suppressing that rebellion was a triumph of force, and not of right" and that "he has always refused and still refuses to recognize the validity of the Amendments to the Constitution adopted since the war, and which as a member of the Supreme Court he would be called upon to construe."[26] Most of the Republican arguments against Lamar were summed up in a resolution sent in by a Republican club in Warren, Ohio, opposing confirmation because Lamar "has but limited experience at the bar, and has shown clearly an utter lack of loyalty to the constitution and Union of the states by joining with its foes in open rebellion, by maligning wantonly the beloved patriot Lincoln, and recently from his seat in the United States Senate, which he held through suppression of votes, by pronouncing encomium upon the unrepentant traitor, Jefferson Davis, and further by his refusal to sustain by his vote the validity of the 'war amendments' to the constitution."[27]

Numerous other resolutions and letters of the same tenor can be found today in the Judiciary Committee files, including a joint resolution of the Ohio General Assembly. Newspaper clippings were also sent to the Committee. One from an Urbana, Illinois, paper laid it out frankly, stating that the Senate should say to the President: "No Confederate can ever wear the judicial ermine of the Supreme Court while a republican majority exists in the Senate."[28] A news report in late December that several Republicans might vote for Lamar provoked this letter from a member of the Party in Tennessee: "I do not know who the republicans are that will vote to confirm ex-rebels. . . . If they had to contend with insults, direct and indirect that we do, they would vote for the devil as soon as an ex-rebel."[29] Individual Senators were getting letters from constituents to the same effect. Many of them can be seen in the papers of John Sherman, John C. Spooner, and William E. Chandler.

Favorable endorsements were also received by the committee, though they were fewer. When the National Veterans' Rights Union in the District of Columbia submitted a resolution against confirmation on the ground that Lamar, as Secretary of the Interior, had violated laws for the protection of disabled Union veterans,[30] another group, the local Union Veterans Union, took issue and wrote the next day asking confirmation, stating that "Sect. Lamar has always recognized the true soldier."[31] The McClellan Veterans Club in Chicago resolved that "we recognize in the Hon. L. Q C. Lamar a thoroughly reconstructed citizen of our united country and that he is entitled to the confirmation by the Senate."[32] A United States district judge in Tennessee urged that as a mere matter of politics "the Republican Party can do nothing better calculated to commend it to public opinion that to support the Lamar nomination."[33] A former Republican postmaster in Mobile wrote that Lamar was "the finest & most liberal man we have in the South."[34]

As the confirmation fight took shape, five grounds of objection emerged. They will be dealt with here in ascending order of importance, proceeding from the most trivial to the most significant: (1) the Mary McBride episode; (2) the disbarment incident; (3) age; (4) alleged lack of legal experience; and (5) the real objection–concerns rooted in secession, war, and the race problem.

I. The Mary McBride Episode

This episode caused a brief flurry of interest in the press but in the end played little or no part in the confirmation debates. In retrospect, it seems more amusing than anything else. It began with a postcard from Mississippi, bearing a signature but no return address, received by Senator Edmunds at the time Congress convened in early December. "If you will send for Col. W P Wood and Col. J. Q. Thompson' the card read, "they will let you know the relations which existed between Mr. Lamar and Miss Mary McBride, now under indictment for setting fire to a house on 11 St. N.W to collect the insurance money. Mr. Van H. Manning, of Miss., might also be made to tell how Lamar paid him a retainer to defend the said Mary."[35] Manning was a former Mississippi Congressman then practicing law in Washington. Precisely what was done with this tip, and by whom, has not been brought to light. But the New York Evening Telegram for December 22 came out with these headlines: "Lamar Accused–Serious Charge Against the Secretary of the Interior–A Lady in the Case–Alleged Relations With a Woman Accused of Arson–Mrs. McBride's Boasted Influence." The accompanying article said that Lamar had secured a position for Mary McBride in the Government Printing Office and later transferred her to the Pension Office, which was under the Interior Department. She had often boasted of her influence over the Secretary, according to the account, and "openly laughed at the idea that she would ever be brought to trial on this charge or any other as long as Mr. L. was powerful in official life."[36]

In early January a letter signed by Mary J. McBride was received by the Senate Judiciary Committee. She denied that Lamar had secured her position in the Printing Office. She had come to Washington from Mississippi in 1877 as a stranger to Lamar, she said, and indeed as a Republican, and had obtained a position in the Treasury Department on Republican endorsements. The letter denied any influence of anyone in connection with the Larson indictment. However, there was no denial that Lamar had her transferred to the Pension Office, and there was an implication that Lamar had done her some favor, for the letter stated that if this is "permitted to go unheeded, a menace lies to every man who either from duty or generous impulse may extend to needy womanhood the helping hand of his official or friendly aid."[37]

All of the facts concerning Lamar's relationship with Mary McBride will probably never be known. Another piece of evidence, not then known to the Judiciary Committee, is an 1885 letter from Lamar to Daniel Manning, the Secretary of the Treasury, asking that Manning"... grant Miss McBride a personal interview I don't believe that she has been fairly represented to you. At any rate I would be much obliged if Miss McBride can be restored."[38] This is at least consistent with her story that she worked in the Treasury; it also shows that Lamar did know Miss McBride and took some interest in whatever her problems were. In any event, little seems to have been made of this whole incident during the confirmation fight. After all, every senator had probably helped a female constituent at some time and would not look favorably on efforts to draw adverse inferences from such activity.

II. The Disbarment Incident

The one undisputed fact about this event is that Lamar had been briefly disbarred in 1871 by Judge Robert A. Hill in the federal district court in Oxford, Mississippi. Otherwise, the facts leading up to this action are confused. Ku Klux Klan trials were in progress and tempers were on edge. Lamar was in the courtroom as attorney for some of the defendants. By one account, a spectator who had been drinking started toward Lamar menacingly. Other observers said that Lamar and a Deputy U.S. Marshal fell into a dispute and Lamar was angered by the judge's failure to reprimand this official. In any event, the Chief Marshal, J. H. Pierce, intervened and Lamar knocked him down with his fist. A melee ensued in the courtroom, and federal soldiers, then stationed in Oxford, entered to restore order. Thereupon the judge ordered Lamar's name stricken from the role of attorneys allowed to practice in the federal court.[39] But two weeks later, on motion of the United States Attorney, the court ordered him restored.[40] Lamar apologized to the court and to Pierce, explaining that he did not realize that Pierce was the person he was striking.

The New York Tribune and others were asserting that this incident demonstrated unfitness for the highest court in the land. Disbarment might normally be considered in itself a disqualification for appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. Lamar is the only member of the Court to have had that dubious distinction, but in this case, because of the unique circumstances and Lamar's quick reinstatement the point did not carry much force. Its harmful impact was probably blunted most effectively by a letter to the Judiciary Committee written at the end of December by J. H. Pierce himself, the marshal who had been the victim of Lamar's attack. He described the disturbance in the courtroom, indicating that Lamar was not the initial aggressor and that he did not intentionally assault a federal marshal. Pierce, though a Republican, said that he had thereafter supported Lamar for Congress and that Lamar's "influence was always on the side of good order, good government, and the protection of all persons in their rights as citizens."[41]

III. Age As A Factor

Lamar's age was one of the chief nonpolitical grounds of objection–one that Lamar himself had conceded to be well taken. He was then sixty-two. There was a certain appeal to this point because no Justice in the history of the Court had been older at the time of appointment. Three others had been the same age, however–Samuel Blatchford, who was still there, and, in the recent past, Hunt and Strong.[42]

The adverse effect of Lamar's age was strengthened by a mistake of fact. Lamar was being talked of as being sixty-seven. This mistake was based on a book published unofficially in 1857 containing biographical sketches of Congressmen, which erroneously stated Lamar to be five years older than he was. Wanting to correct this, Lamar wrote his sister in Oxford just before Christmas, asking that she have his birth record in the family Bible transcribed and certified.[43] In prompt compliance she took the Bible before the clerk of the federal court in Oxford and executed an affidavit setting forth that the date of Lamar's birth recorded in the Bible was September 17, 1825."[44] The affidavit was transmitted to the Judiciary Committee.

Lamar's physical condition, though apparently not mentioned openly, might have provided a better argument against him than age per se. Through the years he had had more than one attack of apoplexy and was sometimes disabled for weeks thereafter. Since joining the Cabinet he had suffered intermittently with illness, though nothing as serious as apoplexy. Just the previous spring he was, as he put it, "Hors du Combat with a severe case of neuralgis."[45] letters to the President and others in the two years before the Court nomination were dotted with comments that he was "quite unwell,"[46] that he had "a very nervous headache,"[47] that he was in bed with a cold,[48] that he was "suffering very much from a heavy attack of catarrhal cold and fever,"[49] and that he was prevented by sickness from doing various things.[50] At Christmas the year before, he had scribbled on a note: "I am so sick & broke down that my son-in-law has come to take me to Miss."[51]

That spell must not have been too serious, however, for within a month Lamar was getting married to an attractive widow, his first wife having died two years earlier. In fact much of his talk of illness was probably exaggerated by his periodic despondency. He was a moody, dreamy type, often out of contact mentally with people around him. Living as a widower following the death of his wife was not apt to have improved his spirits or his health. It was partly for health reasons that he and the new Mrs. Lamar went to the White Mountains in New Hampshire in August, after his talk with Cleveland about the Court appointment. He reported back that the air was a "little too fresh" and that "its breath from the mountain snow gives me a cold or rather makes more pronounced the cold that I have been having for the last two years." He hoped, however, that he would become accustomed to the chill and would emerge in more vigorous health.[52]

Lamar's work at the Interior Department never seemed to suffer materially from these sicknesses. He put in long hours and showed no aversion to difficult, exacting tasks. He had doubts, as usual, about his ability to measure up to the high standards he set for public officials, but he showed no lack of effort and diligence. "With reference to the work and drudgery necessary for the Bench' he said, "I have no fear whatever of that."[53] On the whole, poor health alone would hardly have been a justifiable ground on which to refuse confirmation. But it could have been made a legitimate matter of discussion. However, Lamar was significant as a symbol, and the health of a symbol is not a controlling factor.

IV. Alleged Lack of Legal Experience

The other ground of opposition apt to attract support on its merits was that Lamar lacked sufficient experience at the bar. This point had been brought to Cleveland's attention by Garland when Lamar's name was first under consideration. It was now being said publicly that Lamar was not a "lawyer of eminence."[54] Senator Spooner of Wisconsin summed up this attitude when he said that he had come "to the conclusion that I could not find in the career of Mr. Lamar, as a lawyer, anything which warranted the belief that he possessed the abundant knowledge of principles, of practice, and of decided causes, that one should beyond any doubt possess to be confirmed to such a position, however distinguished he might justly be for fullness of general learning, literary culture, and oratorical ability."[55] That view, being fostered by the Republican press, was based, at least in part, on faulty information and on a faulty premise.

It is surprising how few of the actual facts about Lamar's law practice and legal talent were brought out. He had been admitted to the Georgia bar at the age of twenty-two and had practiced in Macon and Covington for a few years before the war. Though he engaged in only a small amount of prewar practice in Mississippi, beginning in the late 1860's he went at it seriously for several years. After being elected to Congress he continued to practice law on a part-time basis with an Oxford law firm. The demands of Congress in that day did not approach those of the twentieth century, and a Congressman could spend several months of the year at home. In. the postwar period Lamar was involved in a substantial amount of litigation in the federal court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The docket books and case files for that court contain over fifty cases, both civil and criminal, between 1868 and 1877 in which Lamar appeared as counsel.[56] In most of them he was associated with one or two other lawyers. It is difficult to determine just how active Lamar himself was in these cases, but occasional notes and bits of correspondence indicate that in most of them his appearance was more than nominal. He seems to have been more actively involved in federal litigation than in state court matters. Apparently he argued only one case in the Mississippi Supreme Court.[57] Despite this legal experience, statements were being made such as the one in a letter from a lawyer opposing confirmation, that Lamar was not "at all the proper man for the place, never having been engaged in the active practice of the law, that I have ever known."[58] However, Wiley P Harris, considered the leading member of the Mississippi bar, wrote to Senator Walthall that he was surprised at the opposition to Lamar on this ground; he spoke of Lamar's "strength as a lawyer."[59] Walthall, who had been Lamar's law partner for a year right after the war, hastened to circulate this letter among the Senators.

One reason for the widespread impression that Lamar was not "a real lawyer" resulted from the standard by which he was being judged. In the late nineteenth century, particularly to the Republican mind, the eminent lawyers were such men as Joseph H. Choate, James Coolidge Carter, and William M. Evarts–lawyers who represented vast business interests, argued important business cases in the Supreme Court, and belonged to the fledgling and exclusive American Bar Association.[60] Lamar did not fit this pattern; his efforts had been devoted largely to public office. He was not unsympathetic to those interests, but it is understandable that Evarts, for example, a member of the Judiciary Committee, having just entered the Senate, would look on Lamar as not being in his league as a lawyer. Lawyers with that perspective were evidently unable to recognize that a man could be an able, experienced lawyer, even though he did not represent the financial titans of the East.

This criticism of Lamar's qualifications also stemmed from the faulty premise that long experience either in the practice of law or on some court was the best, and indeed an indispensable, preparation for the Supreme Court. The period was one in which Justices in the recent past had been drawn more from the practicing bar or bench and less from political life than in either earlier or later periods in our history. Of the sitting members of the Court, only Matthews had served in Congress, whereas Lamar had spent sixteen years there. Five of the Justices had some prior judicial experience, but Lamar had none except four months as a judge on a military court. Measured by this standard, it is understandable that a person could in good faith question Lamar's fitness for the Court. We recognize more fully today that no particular type of experience necessarily renders a person fit or unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. Indeed, a broad experience in public life, such as Lamar's, can be an excellent background, though this is perhaps more the case today than then because the Court has become far more of a public law forum.

In assessing Lamar's legal ability and experience, his critics failed to take account of his numerous speeches and debates in which legal questions were ably discussed. For example, in the 1858 House debate over the legitimacy of the so-called Lecompton Constitution in Kansas, Lamar demonstrated a knack for dissecting and analyzing a legal problem. He skillfully invoked an analogy to the law of principal and agent to support his argument that delegates to a state constitutional convention, as agents of the people, had power to bind the people.[61] In 1864 he delivered a speech several times to persuade the public that the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus by the Confederate government was constitutional.[62] Again he showed real ability in presenting a difficult legal point in a clear, forceful manner. In fact most of his speeches reveal this talent.

Moreover, as Secretary of the Interior, Lamar had many legal problems to wrestle with and quasi-judicial duties to perform. Patents, pensions, and land claims made up the bulk of this business. Yet this substantial body of very recent experience was apparently glossed over. Lamar's work at the Interior Department particularly brought to light the quality that is perhaps as important as any other in a judge–judicial temperament. A Republican lawyer in Philadelphia wrote Lamar toward the end of December, when confirmation was beginning to look doubtful, asking Lamar to accept "a word of good cheer, and believe that there are many, like myself, who are contributing what we can to your confirmation." He could do this with good heart, he said, "because, having been at the bar for thirty years, and having a professional income exceeded by but few lawyers if any in the United States, I can truthfully say that I prefer to argue a case before you rather than any other judge I have ever addressed."[63] Senator Spooner acknowledged that as Secretary of the Interior Lamar had evidenced "clear and well defined notions of the law, and the courage of his convictions. . . . No one questions that he is a man of great intellectual ability."[64] Word was going around that the late Justice David Davis had had "a very high estimate" of Lamar's legal ability, the two having served together on the Senate Judiciary Committee.[65] Finally, we would surely deem it relevant today, on the question of legal qualifications, to note that Lamar had served for four years as Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi, but this experience was never mentioned.[66]


V. The Real Objection–Concerns Rooted in Secession, War, and the Race Problem

Beyond all the arguments directed to age and qualifications it was clear, and becoming clearer as December waned and the year 1888 began, that at bottom the clamor against Lamar was based on his connection with the secession movement and the Confederacy. As A. T Britton, the Philadelphia lawyer, put it bluntly to Lamar: "Under whatever pretexts your opponents may pretend to speak, the true motive is to defeat the confirmation of any ex-Confederate to the Supreme Bench."[67] This was the theme that repeatedly surfaced in correspondence to and from Republican Senators and in the Republican newspapers.

There were essentially three charges being made against Lamar:

First, a claim that Lamar had actively worked to bring about the secession of the Southern states, that he had given energetic support to the "rebellion" throughout the war, and that he still believed the South to have been right.

Second, a claim that Lamar did not recognize the legitimacy of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, and that he could not be trusted as a Supreme Court Justice to sustain their validity or to construe them fairly.

Third, a claim that Lamar had defended the institution of slavery and that since the war he had worked to deprive blacks of their rights, particularly the franchise. The essential features of these charges and the responses to them will be sketched here.

As to participation in secession and the war, the answer on behalf of Lamar was what common lawyers would call a plea of confession and avoidance. True, he did actively promote secession in 1860. He believed that a state had a right constitutionally to withdraw from the Union and that the circumstances made it appropriate for that right to be exercised. He drafted the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession. During the war he enthusiastically supported the Confederacy as an army colonel and a diplomat in Europe, as well as on the home front. But for two decades before his nomination to the Court he had been equally firm that the war had settled finally the issue of secession; he accepted the result unequivocally. In his address at the dedication of the John C. Calhoun monument in Charleston, only a few months before the confirmation fight, Lamar made the point again. Were Calhoun still here, Lamar said, he would say to South Carolina "that, the great controversy being closed at the ballot box, closed by the arbitrament of war, and above all, closed by the constitution . . . , she sacrifices no principle and falsifies no sentiment in accepting the verdict.., a people who in form surrender and profess to submit, yet continue to secretly nurse old resentments and past animosities and cherish delusive schemes of reaction and revenge, will sooner or later degenerate into baseness and treachery and treason"[68] Lamar's conduct in House, Senate, and Cabinet evidenced that this was his genuine belief If he were to be barred from the Court on this score, it meant there could be no atonement for a participant in the Confederacy, and that was precisely the position of some people.

With others there were lingering doubts about the genuineness of Lamar's reconciliation, despite his record of national public service. It was said, for example, that Lamar had openly defended Jefferson Davis in later years. Lamar did have a strong personal loyalty to Davis. He and Davis were in precisely the same position, Lamar said, and "no man shall in my presence call Jefferson Davis a traitor without my responding with a stern and emphatic denial."[69] At the same time, Lamar alone among the Democratic senators, had voted with the Republicans to make ex-President Grant eligible for military retirement.[70] He also gave ten dollars in a popular subscription drive to erect a monument to Grant.[71]

Nevertheless, there were recurrent charges of duplicity. Back in 1876, Adelbert Ames, the young brigadier general from Maine who had been made Reconstruction governor of Mississippi, said that Lamar was "devoted to a policy of deceit for the purpose of misleading the North."[72] He was one thing in his home state and quite another in Washington, so Ames reported. One story was that Lamar himself had said that when he went on to the floor of the House the day of the Sumner memorial proceedings, he had two speeches with him–one was a bitter attack on the North, the other the reconciling speech he actually gave. Circumstances were to determine which he would deliver. His decision to give the latter was reached after he saw the response to other speakers.[73] But this story came from Lamar's opponents and is not corroborated. Another long-time political enemy, James R. Chalmers, cautioned Senator Chandler, while the Court nomination was pending, about the ingratitude and duplicity of Lamar.[74] Chalmers asserted that there were several occasions on which Lamar had pretended to support certain persons for government jobs when in fact he had not done so.

Lamar's position on the War Amendments was another large bone of contention. The charge against him went back to an episode in 1879 in the Senate. Edmunds had offered a resolution which would put the Senate on record as declaring that the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments had been legally ratified. Lamar had refused to vote for that resolution and had supported instead a resolution by Morgan that the Amendments were binding as part of the Constitution. The distinction reflected in the Southern position to which Lamar subscribed was that the Amendments had to be recognized in fact as an outgrowth of the war, though they had been adopted under duress and by legislatures not of the people's choosing. Contrary to widely circulated reports, Lamar did not take the position that the Amendments were legally invalid. The Republican attitude on this was, as expressed by Spooner, that the Amendments "could not be legally a part of the Constitution unless they were legally ratified, and that a mental or other reservation upon that question, or an adverse opinion upon it, is abundant foundation, when the time comes, for declaring them not binding."[75] It was also suggested with horror that because of his view on this matter Lamar, as a Supreme Court justice, might even vote to sustain the constitutionality of an act to compensate former slave holders for the loss of their slaves if a Democratic Congress should pass such a measure.[76]

The most emotional of all the Civil War-related arguments against Lamar's confirmation concerned the race question. The standing Republican accusation against the Southern Democrats was that they suppressed the black vote and the Republican Party in the South. Lamar had played a central role in carrying out the "Mississippi Plan" in 1875 which resulted in the state's finally ridding itself of the carpetbag government and installing the Democrats. The contest had been bitter. Ames and the Republicans had accused Lamar, George and their followers of "intimidation, fraud and murder."[77] In return, the Republicans were accused of corruption and of having used military force to put themselves into office.

The matter had been the subject of endless disputation through the years as part of the general argument over Reconstruction and its aftermath. In that extraordinarily turbulent period of Southern history, the truth is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to get at. There are, however, a few facts relating to Lamar that can be pinpointed. He spoke publicly numerous times against a "white line." At a Democratic convention during the 1875 campaign, for example, he sponsored a resolution stating that "We are opposed to the formation of parties among the people of this State founded upon differences of race or color, and we cordially invoke the union of good citizens of every race and color in patriotic efforts to defeat at the next election the present state administration. . . ."[78] In 1879, as a contributor to a symposium in the North American Review he supported Negro suffrage.[79]

One student of the period concluded that Lamar was guilty of less hypocrisy than has been charged, on the theory that he and the class he represented had little to fear from the Negro and much to gain from establishing themselves as his protector.[80] Black Republicans regularly received federal patronage through Lamar and his colleagues in Congress. Lamar personally moved the confirmation of the former black Senator, Blanche K. Bruce, as Register of the Treasury. All this, however, was alleged by the white Republicans to be a scheme to keep the Republican Party as a Negro party and thereby maintain the Democrats in power by their appeal as the white man's party.[81]

Anxious to provide ammunition against Lamar on this count, one Wilson Vance, a former Senate committee clerk, scribbled a note to Senator Edmunds the very day Cleveland sent Lamar's nomination to Capitol Hill. Vance reported that Charles Foster, a former Ohio Congressman and Governor, had once told him that Lamar had stated in a private conversation that "whether by fair means or by foul" we will "not permit the Negroes to gain the ascendancy." Vance suggested that Foster be telegraphed to enquire whether he is willing to depose upon oath that Mr. Lamar said any such thing."[82] Edmunds followed this up by writing to Foster,[83] and Foster promptly replied. The talk with Lamar, Foster said, was held at the suggestion of President-Elect Garfield and was confidential; therefore, he would not now permit its public use. Nevertheless, Foster proceeded to outline Lamar's comments. Lamar had "deprecated murder and Ku-Klux methods, and expressed the belief that the white people of the South would not continue such methods." But Lamar had also said, "Negro government was necessarily ignorant, and ignorant government was necessarily vicious and bad." The white people "would control their own affairs ... their personal safety and financial interests required it." Foster concluded his letter with a comment of his own: "I am very clear after a good deal of thought (for I like Lamar personally) that he, nor any one else entertaining the sentiments he does, should become a United States Judge."[84]

Apart from these emotional issues of section and race, the Republicans had good reasons to be favorable to Lamar. He had not always fought them, and in fact had joined them at times against a majority of the Democrats and contrary to substantial sentiment in his home state. On the silver bill, for example, he voted in line with the eastern gold interests, thereby disobeying explicit instructions from the Mississippi legislature and almost committing political suicide.[85] His support of the bill authorizing military retirement for President Grant is another illustration. And in the Compromise of 1877, which resulted in Hayes becoming President over Tilden, Lamar played a significant, cooperative role. For years he had been much involved with the railroads, a major Republican concern. After the war he was on the board of directors of the Mississippi Central Railroad, later absorbed by the Illinois Central, and in the House he was chairman of the Pacific Railroads Committee. Just two months before his Supreme Court nomination went to the Senate, Lamar, as Interior Secretary, had ordered 200,000 acres of land restored to the Chicago, St. Paul Minneapolis, and Omaha Railroad. This caused speculation thereafter that the two Republican Senators from Wisconsin, who were much interested in that road, would vote for Lamar's confirmation.[86] On other occasions, however, Lamar ruled against the railroads on land questions. On the whole, Lamar was not unfriendly to railroads and the financial interests radiating from them, all of which were influential in the Republican Party. Henry Adams, the New England historian who had impeccable Republican credentials, came to know Lamar well during his Senate years and described him as being at that time "one of the calmest, most reasonable and most amiable Union men in the United States, and quite unusual in social charm."[87]

One of Lamar's most interesting positions as a legislator was his support of federal aid to education. This point was relevant at the time of the confirmation fight, though it was evidently not mentioned, because the major question under debate in the Senate in January, 1888, was again a bill to provide federal funds for the "common schools." Such a bill had never been enacted although it had passed the Senate twice before. Lamar had made a leading speech for it in 1884. There he first disposed of the constitutional objections; he saw none. The Land Grant Act had long been in effect, and Lamar was unable to grasp "the refinements and subtleties about the distinction between the granting of land and an appropriation of money for educational purposes.... It is not the kind of aid granted . . . but the purpose for which it is granted, that is to be considered." He did "not see any entering wedge, as it is called, in this bill toward Federal intervention in the jurisdiction of the State over the education of its children."

In his speech, Lamar then moved to the reasons why he supported the federal education bill: "In my opinion, it is the first step, and the most important step, that this government has ever taken, in the direction of the solution of what is called the race problem; and I believe that it will tell more powerfully and decisively upon the future destinies of the colored race in America than any measure or ordinance that has yet been adopted in reference to it–more decisively than either the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth amendments, unless it is to be considered, as I do consider it, the logical sequence and the practical continuance of those amendments." Basically Lamar's position was that the enormous task of educating the suddenly freed slaves was a national responsibility; it could not and should not be borne solely by the former slave states. His speech was a perceptive discussion of the history of public education and its place in American society. Some people were mistaken, he said,

For those who reflected dispassionately on Lamar's nomination for the Supreme Court there were few grounds of real substance on which it could reasonably have been opposed–unless, of course, there was to be an absolute bar to former Confederates. Some of his political opponents conceded this. A Republican attorney wrote that "if some Democrat has to be confirmed"–and that was no doubt the case–it should just as well be Lamar, for he would do nothing but what he conceived right and he was superior to others who might be nominated.[89] But a decision had been made within the controlling councils of the Republican Party that confirmation must be defeated as a matter of party policy.

Throughout December the Judiciary Committee took no action. Senator Wilson, being away at Christmas and not wishing to miss any development, wrote a note instructing Edmunds to cast Wilson's vote against confirmation if the committee met before his return.[90] But the committee majority was waiting for more opposition to develop and the Republican ranks to close. As the new year of 1888 dawned, there were reports that various Republican Senators would buck the party and vote for Lamar. Among those mentioned were Spooner and Sawyer of Wisconsin, Chandler of New Hampshire, Steward and Jones of Nevada, and Stanford of California.[91] There was still a question mark around the Independent, Riddleberger of Virginia. The Democrats were evidently united. The outcome, therefore, appeared to hinge on two votes.

On January 2 an event far from the capital city, and not directly involving Lamar, played into the hands of his opponents. The city of Jackson, Mississippi, held a municipal election on that day. Reports immediately reached the Republican senators of intimidation of black voters. Letters and newspaper clippings began coming into the Judiciary Committee. A Jackson paper, the day after the election, had reported: "Not a Negro voted in this city yesterday, which is the first instance of the kind since the war. We learn that two attempted to vote. . . but were prevented by the judges."[92] It was also reported that the Democrats held a mass meeting beforehand and resolved "that in the election to be held on Monday next none but white men will vote, the negroes having voluntarily agreed to stay away from the polls."[93] It was claimed that the United States Attorney, an appointee of the Democratic Administration, had engineered the whole thing. The effort was to link it to Lamar. A Republican in Jackson wrote Senator Sherman that "If you wish to defeat the confirmation of Mr. Lamar, which ought to be done, here is now abundant material upon which to do it."[94] Thus the whole racial issue was heated up by a fresh episode. It hung in the air for a week before inevitably reaching the Senate floor in the form of a resolution proposed by Chandler that the Judiciary Committee be instructed "to inquire into the suppression of the votes of the colored citizens of Jackson, Miss., at the recent municipal election," particularly the alleged participation of certain federal officials, and to report the facts to the Senate.[95]

Meanwhile, Lamar had decided to resign from the Cabinet. The delay over his confirmation was complicating the administration of both the Interior and Post Office Departments. And the controversy over Lamar was embarrassing to the administration. Lamar felt that by severing all connections with the government he would "leave before the Senate in its final judgment upon my nomination the sole question of my fitness for the position, dissociated from any other nomination and unaffected by any other considerations."[96] Accordingly, on January 7 he submitted a letter of resignation to the President.[97] A response came from the Executive Mansion the same day. The President, in a personal note, accepted the resignation with "the most profound and sincere regret effective at noon on January 10.[98] A New York paper commented: "This act of his will fix the eyes of the country upon his judges; and the people ... will require that the Senate do not injustice in this case."[99]

January 8 was a turning point. It was then that the Republican Senator from Nevada, William M. Stewart, released to the press a letter to a constituent in which he stated that he would support the confirmation of Lamar. The issue had been so framed, said Stewart, that the rejection of Lamar would be construed as a declaration that being on the losing side in the war was a disqualification for the Supreme Bench. "It is unreasonable' he concluded, "to expect that the people of eleven states of the Union shall, during all the present generation, be excluded from participation in the judicial determinations of the highest court of the United States."[100] Here was a break in the Republican ranks. The question was whether there would be others. Just three days before, Spooner had reported that sentiment was very strong against Lamar.[101]

What motivated Stewart is speculative. He was a rugged product of the mining frontier–a massive figure, with flowing beard and long silver hair, who had accumulated and disposed of several large fortunes. He was hardly a man to pay much attention to party discipline. His wife was the daughter of Henry S. Foote who had been a senator from Mississippi and governor of the state before the war, and it was said that she exerted influence for Lamar. But this report must be taken with caution because Foote and Lamar had been political opponents. Stewart was active on behalf of the Pacific railroads, and he may have found Lamar's record in that connection appealing. Moreover, the far western senators were less sensitive to the sectional issue. Some years later, recalling the episode, Stewart said that objection to confirmation had come down simply to the fact that "Mr. Lamar had borne arms against the United States." His position was, as he later recounted, that when the Southern states were restored in the Union and amnesty granted, all persons who accepted the conditions in good faith, as he was convinced Lamar had, "were entitled, other things being equal, to hold any office to which any citizen of the United States is eligible."[103]

The report of the Senate Judiciary Committee was submitted shortly thereafter. The committee had divided 5-4 on party lines, the Republican majority rendering a report adverse to confirmation on the grounds of age and lack of legal experience.[104] This committee position had been an open secret since shortly after New Year's Day. In fact, the votes of the majority had been predictable from the time Congress convened, with the possible exception of Evarts who might have been expected to be somewhat less partisan. Hoar was later to confess that he made a mistake.[105]

The critical breakthrough came on the twelfth of January. Ingalls was in the chair as President Pro Tem of the Senate. He was vehemently against confirmation, having given a statement that Lamar "represents everything that is bad in the past, dangerous in the present, and menacing in the future."[106] He now brought before the Senate the matter by which the Republicans hoped to forestall any further defections–Chandler's resolution calling for an investigation of the Jackson election. Debate opened on the question of agreeing to the resolution, and Chandler led off. He presented a series of letters and newspaper clippings telling of Democratic suppression of black voters. The clerk of the Senate read them, one after another. Chandler then argued that with a presidential election coming up the question was one of national importance. It was a matter of concern, he said, whether that election would be decided by a fair vote of all who are constitutionally entitled to vote or by the disenfranchisement of the million and a half black voters "in pursuance of this policy which we have seen deliberately adopted in the capital of the State of Mississippi, which state seeks today to furnish an associate justice to the Supreme Court of the United States to aid in passing upon the validity of the constitutional amendments."[107] Here was a clever and subtle use of the "bloody shirt" technique–a linking of Lamar to the Jackson election when there was no evidence of any such connection.

Riddleberger, the independent from Virginia, was on his feet immediately. "Mr. Presidents' he began, "there can be no longer any concealment as to the purpose of the debate. . . ." As anyone could tell, he said, the whole proceeding was aimed at the rejection of Lamar. After pointing out, correctly, that under existing Senate rules the Lamar nomination should be dealt with only in executive session and not in open debate, Riddleberger made his dramatic announcement: "If it be allowable to have this kind of debate in open session, then it becomes me, sir, to say that I will vote for Lamar."[108] Here was the second of the two non-Democratic votes necessary for confirmation. Assuming that the Democrats held fast, the issue was settled. Stewart and Riddleberger, plus all the Democratic Senators, added up to a one vote majority."[109]

As analyzed by one contemporary political observer, Riddleberger's support for Lamar came as a reaction to the Republican effort "to make participation in the rebellion a tests' Riddleberger himself being an ex-Confederate. This tactic showed a "lack of sagacity" on the part of the Republican leadership, the observer thought. "Opposition on the ground of age and unfitness would have kept the majority in the Senate solid, and perhaps secured support from the Democratic minority."

Confirmation came four days later. After a three-and-a-half hour executive session on the afternoon of January 16, the Senate reopened, and confirmation of three Presidential nominations was announced: Lamar to the Supreme Court, Vilas for Secretary of the Interior, and Dickinson for Postmaster General.[110] It was anticlimactic because of the Riddleberger and Stewart announcements. But Lamar, forever gloomy, that very morning sitting alone as a private citizen at his home on K Street, wrote a note to a friend thanking him for some books and adding: "I can now say that I do not expect ever to have occasion to use them as a Judge of the Supreme Court–for I think the Senate has become united on the Republican side to defeat my confirmation."[111]

The Senate was indeed almost united on the Republican side. Though the proceedings were in closed session, the vote was generally reported to have been 32 to 28 for confirmation. Apparently, 16 senators had not voted. In addition to Riddleberger and Stewart, one more Republican vote had been picked up at the last–Leland Stanford, the railroad titan and lackluster Senator from California. Stewart, his long-time friend and advisor, had gone to Stanford's home to secure his support, and after a full discussion Stanford agreed to vote for confirmation.[114] It was rumored that if any more Republican votes had been necessary to put Lamar over, they would have been forthcoming.[115] Evidently the party leadership sensed that the fight was lost, and the idea of a Republican caucus to bind all members of the party was abandoned before the vote.[116] The opposition "was more apparent than real commented one newspaper.[117]

The confirmation was announced at the capitol at 4:30 in the afternoon. The news spread quickly. In the lamplight of early evening, congratulatory messages and telegrams–many addressed to "Mr. Justice Lamar"–were pouring into 1204 K Street. The sad-eyed and dreamy Lamar was receiving them and numerous callers with obvious gratification.[118] Walthall was there, along with Vilas and others. The next morning came a note from Chief Justice Waite. He had just heard "the good news" and wrote:

There was no reason for delay. Lamar had already disengaged himself at the Interior Department. He told a reporter: "The Supreme Court really needs another member at once. A tie may now frequently occur on important questions, and it is eminently desirable that such a state of affairs should not exist."[120]

And so it was that on January 18, 1888 L. Q. C. Lamar was sworn in as a justice on the United States Supreme Court. The irony is indeed great. Here was a man who had actively participated in leading the Southern states to secede from the union, had worn the Confederate gray, had borne arms against the United States. Yet here he now sat, robed in black, on the Supreme Court, that holy of holies of American civil government, charged with final authority to interpret the Constitution. Lamar lived only five more years, not long enough to make a substantial contribution to the Court's jurisprudence, although he participated in some significant cases. The importance of the appointment lies rather in its symbolism. It signified a fully reunited nation. The symbolism would not have been effective had the appointee not been one who had actively participated in secession and the war and had fully shared in the disastrous defeat of the Lost Cause. The absolution could be achieved only through an appointee with that background, yet one who had unequivocally accepted the verdict of history and had spoken for reconciliation and a new day.

Lamar's contribution to history was perhaps best summed up in a statement made by Attorney General Warren Olney during the memorial proceedings in the Supreme Court following Lamar's death. Olney, speaking as Attorney General and for the Bar of the Court, said this of Lamar:

For this reason Lamar was, in my opinion, the man best fitted in his time and place for the historic role of symbolizing in living flesh on the Supreme Bench a truly reunited nation.

Endnotes

1. Lamar has been the subject of three book-length biographies: Mayes, Lucius Q. C. Lamar--His Life, Times and Speeches (1896) (cited hereafter as Mayes); Cate, Lucius O. C. Lamar--Secession and Reunion (1935) (cited hereafter as Cate); and Murphy, L. O. C. Lamar--Pragmatic Patriot (1973). Mayes contains the full text of numerous letters, speeches, and newspaper articles that are otherwise unavailable.
2. 2 Cong. Rec. 3410, 43^rd Cong., 1^st sess., (April 27, 1874).
3. William Burnham Woods, 20 Dictionary of American Biography, 505-06 (1936); In Memoriam, William B. Woods, 123 U.S. 761 (187).
4. Cate 471.
5. Augustus H. Garland, 7 Dictionary of American Biography 150-51 (1936).
6. Lamar to Rutherford B. Hayes, Oct. 8, 1877, Hayes Mss., RUTHERFORD b. Hayes Library, Fremont, Ohio (cited hereafter as Hayes Mss).
7. Mayes 518-19.
8. Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage 315-20, 367-82 (1932).
9. Lamar to J. F. King, July 7, 1887, printed in Mayes 520.
10. Lamar to E. C. Walthall, July 9, 1887, printed in Mayes 520-21.
11. IbId.
12. Hill, L. Q. C. Mamar, 5 The Green Bag 153, 161 (1895).
13. Note 9 supra.
14. Lamar to E. C. Walthall, July 30, 1887, printed in Mayes 521.
15. IbId.
16. Lamar to William E. Vilas, Aug. 17, 187, Vilas Mss., Wisc. Historical Society.
17. Lamar to Grover Cleveland, Sept. 10, 1887, Cleveland Mss. Vol. 176 Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (cited hereafter as Cleveland Miss.).
18. Cleveland to W. F. Vilas, Sept. 14, 1887, Letters of Grover Cleveland 156 (Nevis ed. 1933).
19. U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2, clause 3.
20. Act of March 3, 18891, 26 Stat. 826.
21. Lamar to Mrs. Kate W. Freeman, Dec. 23, 1887, printed in Mayes 461.
22. 19 Cong. Rec. 36, 50^th Cong., 1^st Sess. (Dec. 12, 1887).
23. Henry W. Grady to Lamar, Oct. 29 1887, printed in Mayes 521.
24. G. F. Edmunds to Lamar, Jan. .15, 1885, printed in Mayes 521.
25. Resolution of the Garfield Club, Columbus Ohio, Jan. 14, 1888, Files of Senate Judiciary Committee--Lamar Nomination, National Archives, Washington, D.C. (cited hereafter as Judiciary Committee Files).
26. Resolution of Kokomo Lincoln League, Kokomo, Inc., Jan. 2, 1888, Judiciary Committee Files.
27. Resolution of Giddings Republican Club, Warren, Ohio, Jan. 1, 1888, Judiciary Committee Files.
28. Champaign County Herald, Urbana, Ill., Dec. 14, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
29. S. L. Griffith to unspecified addressee, Dec. 31, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
30. Resolution of National Veterans' Rights Union of Dist. Of Col, Dec. 10, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
31. H. J. Crouch, Union Veterans Union, to Chairman, Judiciary Committee, Dec. 11, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
32. Resolution of McClellan Veterans Club, Jan. 4, 1888, Judiciary Committee Files.
33. Eli Shelby Hammond to Sen. Edmunds, Dec. 27, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
34. Jas. E. Slaughter to Sen. Edmunds, Jan. 1, 1888, Judiciary Committee Files.
35. J. W. Hubbard to Sen. Edmunds, Dec. 8, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
36. The Evening Telegram, New York, Dec. 22, 1887, Judiciary Committee Files.
37. Mary J. McBride to Senate Judiciary Committee, Jan. 9, 1888, Judiciary Committee Files.
38. Lamar to D. H. Man