Rufus W. Peckham

Rufus W. Peckham
Rufus W. Peckham
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
	In office; December 9, 1895 – October 24, 1909[1]
Nominated by	Grover Cleveland
Preceded by	Howell Jackson
Succeeded by	Horace Lurton
Personal details
Born	November 8, 1838; Albany, New York, U.S.
Died	October 24, 1909 (aged 70); Altamont, New York, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Hariette Arnold (m. 1867)
Children	2

Rufus W. Peckham[lower-alpha 1] (November 8, 1838 – October 24, 1909) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1895 until 1909. He was known for his strong use of substantive due process to invalidate regulations of business and property. Peckham's namesake father was also a lawyer and judge, and a representative. His older brother, Wheeler Hazard Peckham (1833–1905), was one of the lawyers who prosecuted Boss Tweed and a failed nominee to the Supreme Court. His other brother, Joseph Henry, died at 17.

Biography

Peckham was born in Albany, New York, to Rufus Wheeler Peckham and Isabella Adeline Lacey;[8] his mother died when he was only nine. Following his graduation from The 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 from 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 the New York Supreme Court in 1883. In 1886, Peckham was elected to the New 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 the Albany Law School Board of Trustees.[9] 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 1873 Ville du Havre sinking.

Peckham was active in local Democratic politics, and served as a New York delegate to the 1876 Democratic National Convention. He was also a confidant to such tycoons as J. Pierpont Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller. Many believed these relationships predisposed Peckham to favor business interests while on the Supreme Court.

Peckham's Supreme Court nomination

Rufus Peckham's brother Wheeler was a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Grover Cleveland, in 1894. However, this nomination was caught in the middle of a political tug-of-war between Cleveland and New York Senator David Hill, and Wheeler was the second nominee of Cleveland's that Hill managed to block; Senator Edward Douglass White was instead confirmed to the Court. By the time another seat on the Court was vacant after the death of Howell 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) and took his oath of office in January 1896. Peckham remains the last Supreme Court Justice nominated 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 of "laissez-faire" constitutionalism, during which the Court regularly struck down efforts to regulate labor standards and relations. Peckham's most famous opinion was in Lochner 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.

Peckham's grave at Albany Rural Cemetery

Beyond Lochner, Peckham is perhaps best known for his expansive interpretation of the Sherman antitrust law, in which he saw the goal of protecting consumer welfare. His opinions on civil rights for African Americans are remarkable only for the abandonment of his usual antistatism in voting to uphold Jim Crow laws—the most notable being Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which he silently joined the majority. On the other hand, he and Justice David 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.

Justice Peckham authored the landmark decision in Ex parte Young (1908), which held that a federal court may issue an injunction against a State officer to prevent the enforcement of an invalid State law.

Peckham served on the Court until his death on October 24, 1909, at age 70, writing 303 opinions and dissenting only nine times.

Family and burial

He was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Menands, New York, later to be joined by his wife, Harriette Maria Arnold (December 13, 1839 - July 25, 1917). They both 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, whose disappearance on December 12, 1910 was referenced, in 1928, as "the great search of the age" by United Press Associations (now UPI).[10]

Notes

Modern sources, including the Supreme Court's own web site, list his middle name as "Wheeler", like his father.[2] However, sources that were published in his lifetime mostly listed it as William.[3][4][5][6] Regardless, it appears he did not normally use his middle name, and only has his middle initial inscribed on his tombstone.[7]

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gollark: Is this something stupid about... pointing lasers at aeroplanes?

gollark: If they don't, they'll talk to facts' manager.

gollark: There was a discussion about languages of some kind.

gollark: Orbital bee strikes are not a hugely new concept.

References

"Federal Judicial Center: John Archibald Campbell". 2009-12-11. Archived from the original on 2009-05-14. Retrieved 2009-12-11.
"Justices 1789 to Present". Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
Proceedings, Washington State Bar Association 13th Annual Convention. Washington State Bar Association. 1901. p. 100. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Hon Rufus William Peckham of New York born in 1838 commissioned by President Cleveland.
"MINNESOTA LAWS REGULATING RATES DECLARED INVALID" (Volume 115, Number 28). The Sacramento Union. UCR Center For Bibliographical Studies and Research. 24 March 1908. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Rufus William Peckham of the U.S. Supreme Court [contemporary photo caption]
Brown, Roscoe C. E.; Smith, Ray B. (1922). Political and Governmental History of the State of New York (Vol. 3 ed.). The Syracuse Press Inc. p. 328B. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Rufus William Peckham jurist born at Albany NY November 8 1838.
Colby, Frank M.; et al. (eds.). The New International Encyclopædia (Vol. 18 ed.). p. 242. Retrieved 29 November 2018. 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.
Rufus W. Peckham at Find a Grave
National Cyclopaedia The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 11; James. T. White and Company; New York, NY, USA; 1909, p. 410.
Elizabeth K. Allen; Diana S. Waite (2000). Albany Law School 1851–2001: A Tradition of Change. Mount Ida Press. p. 165.
UPI "Mrs. Arnold Dies With 18-Year Vigil In Vain"; The United Press, United Press Associations; The Pittsburgh Press; 31 Dec. 1928. Retrieved 1 Dec. 2018.

External links

Ely, James W. Jr. (2009). "Rufus W. Peckham and Economic Liberty". Vanderbilt Law Review. 62 (2): 591–638. SSRN 1105065.
"R. W. Peckham Dead [Obituary]". New York, N.Y.: New-York Tribune.1866-1924. 25 October 1909. Retrieved 29 November 2018.

Legal offices
Preceded by Howell Jackson	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1895–1909	Succeeded by Horace Lurton

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[8] Modern sources, including the Supreme Court's own web site, list his middle name as "Wheeler", like his father.[2] However, sources that were published in his lifetime mostly listed it as William.[3][4][5][6] Regardless, it appears he did not normally use his middle name, and only has his middle initial inscribed on his tombstone.[7]

[fedjudcenter-1] "Federal Judicial Center: John Archibald Campbell". 2009-12-11. Archived from the original on 2009-05-14. Retrieved 2009-12-11.

[2] "Justices 1789 to Present". Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved 29 November 2018.

[3] Proceedings, Washington State Bar Association 13th Annual Convention. Washington State Bar Association. 1901. p. 100. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Hon Rufus William Peckham of New York born in 1838 commissioned by President Cleveland.

[4] "MINNESOTA LAWS REGULATING RATES DECLARED INVALID" (Volume 115, Number 28). The Sacramento Union. UCR Center For Bibliographical Studies and Research. 24 March 1908. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Rufus William Peckham of the U.S. Supreme Court [contemporary photo caption]

[5] Brown, Roscoe C. E.; Smith, Ray B. (1922). Political and Governmental History of the State of New York (Vol. 3 ed.). The Syracuse Press Inc. p. 328B. Retrieved 29 November 2018. Rufus William Peckham jurist born at Albany NY November 8 1838.

[6] Colby, Frank M.; et al. (eds.). The New International Encyclopædia (Vol. 18 ed.). p. 242. Retrieved 29 November 2018. 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.

[7] Rufus W. Peckham at Find a Grave

[9] National Cyclopaedia The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 11; James. T. White and Company; New York, NY, USA; 1909, p. 410.

[10] Elizabeth K. Allen; Diana S. Waite (2000). Albany Law School 1851–2001: A Tradition of Change. Mount Ida Press. p. 165.

[11] UPI "Mrs. Arnold Dies With 18-Year Vigil In Vain"; The United Press, United Press Associations; The Pittsburgh Press; 31 Dec. 1928. Retrieved 1 Dec. 2018.