Justice Lucius Q. C. Lamar II
Today’s Justice of the Day is: LUCIUS Q. C. LAMAR II. Justice Lamar was born on this day, September 17, in 1825.
Justice Lamar was born in Eatonton, Georgia (located almost exactly halfway between Athens, Georgia, and Macon, Georgia). He went on to attend Emory College, earning a B.A. in 1845.
In 1847, Justice Lamar began a two year stint in private practice in Covington, Georgia, immediately after which he became President of the University of Mississippi, located in the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. His career would see him work there as a Professor for brief periods throughout the following decades, including while he was President of the university (from 1849 to 1852), from 1855 to 1857, in 1861, and from 1865 to 1870. Justice Lamar would also work in private practice on and off in Oxford, Mississippi for many years, including during his time as President of the University of Mississippi, then from 1855 to 1857, and finally, from 1865 to 1873. In 1852, he briefly returned to Covington for a one-year stint working as a private attorney, before he served as a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1853 and then worked in private practice in Macon for the two years immediately following his departure from the Georgia legislature. Justice Lamar began serving in the United States House of Representatives in 1857, but left that office in 1860, one year prior to the beginning of his service in the Army of the Confederate States of America, which included serving as a Lieutenant Colonel of the Nineteenth Mississippi Regiment (from 1861 to 1862), a Special Confederate Commissioner to Russia (from 1862 to 1863), as well as a Judge Advocate of the Third Army Corps. of the Army of Northern Virginia (from 1863 to 1865). Justice Lamar returned to the U.S. House in 1873, and left that body in 1877 upon taking office as a Member of the United States Senate from Mississippi. He left the Senate to join the Cleveland Administration as Secretary of the Interior in 1885, where he remained until his appointment to the SCUS.
Justice Lamar was nominated by President Grover Cleveland on December 6, 1887, to a seat vacated by Justice William Burnham Woods. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 16, 1888, and received his commission that day. Justice Lamar took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on January 18, and served on the Waite (for a very, very brief time) and Fuller Courts. His service was terminated on January 23, 1893, due to his death.
Justice Lamar is not a particularly well-remembered Justice today, and he did not take part in all that many of the premier civil rights cases of his era.