Everything about Henry B Brown totally explained
Henry Billings Brown (born
South Lee, Massachusetts,
March 2,
1836; died
Bronxville, New York,
September 4,
1913) was an associate justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States from
January 5,
1891 to
May 28,
1906. He is perhaps best known today as the author of the opinion for the Court in
Plessy v. Ferguson, the famous decision that upheld the legality of
racial segregation in
public transportation.
Life and work
Brown grew up in a
New England merchant's family. He graduated from
Yale in 1856, and received some formal legal training both at Yale and at
Harvard, although he didn't earn a law degree. His early law practice was in
Detroit, where he specialized in
admiralty law (for example, shipping law on the
Great Lakes). Brown hired a substitute to take his place in the Union Army during the
Civil War. He served as
U.S. Attorney and in 1875 was appointed to the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Brown edited a collection of rulings and orders in important admiralty cases from inland waters, which is still used as a reference in
Black's Law Dictionary. He also compiled a case book on admiralty law for his lectures at Georgetown University. He was a
Republican prior to joining the court, but wasn't known for excessive partisanship.
President Benjamin Harrison appointed Brown to the U.S. Supreme Court on
December 23,
1890.
Brown was generally unwilling to allow government intervention in business, and concurred with the majority opinion in
Lochner v. New York striking down a limitation on maximum working hours. He did, however, support the
federal income tax in
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895). Brown left diaries written from his college days until his appointment as a federal judge in 1875. They can be found in the Burton Historical Collection of the
Detroit Public Library. His diaries suggest that Brown was personally likable (but ambitious),
depressed and often full of doubt about himself. Near the end of his years on the Court he largely lost his eyesight. He died of heart failure. Brown is buried in
Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit.
In 1864 Brown married Caroline Pitts, the daughter of a wealthy Detroit lumberman; they'd no children. She died in 1901; in 1904, he married a close friend of his first wife, the widow Josephine E. Tyler.
Further Information
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