Augustus Hill Garland

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Augustus Hill Garland bigraphy, stories - Lawyer and American politician

Augustus Hill Garland : biography

June 11, 1832 – January 26, 1899

Augustus Hill Garland (June 11, 1832  – January 26, 1899) was an Arkansas lawyer and politician. He was a senator in both the United States and the Confederate States, served as 11th Governor of Arkansas and as Attorney General of the United States in the first administration of Grover Cleveland.

Ex parte Garland

At the end of the Civil War, Garland was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson on July 15, 1865. Despite this pardon, he was prohibited from practicing law due to a provision passed by the United States Congress on January 24, 1865, stripping the law licenses of all lawyers who worked with the Confederate government or military. Garland became the petitioner in the case of Ex parte Garland in which he made the argument that it was unconstitutional and a violation of ex post facto. On January 14, 1867, by a vote of five to four, the Court agreed. The ruling caused considerable uproar in the north, but gave hope that the judicial system could be used to prevent the implementation of the Reconstruction Act that had recently been passed by Congress. He then pushed the Supreme Court to hear the case of Mississippi v. Johnson which challenged the constitutionality of those acts, however the Court refused.

Early life and law career

Garland was born in Covington, Tennessee, on June 11, 1832, to Rufus and Barbara (Hill) Garland. His parents moved to Lost Prairie in Arkansas in 1833, his father owning a store. Rufus Garland died several years later, and in 1836 his mother married Thomas Hubbard. Hubbard moved the family to Washington, Arkansas, near the Hempstead County seat of Hope.

Garland attended Spring Hill Male Academy from 1838 to 1843. He attended St. Mary’s College in Lebanon, Kentucky, and graduated from St. Joseph’s College in Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1849.

Garland taught at Brounstown School in Mine Creek, Sevier County, but returned to Washington to study law with Hempstead County clerk Simon Sanders, He was admitted to the bar in 1853 and starting his law practice with his stepfather. He married Sarah Virginia Sanders on June 14, 1853; they had nine children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Garland moved to Little Rock in June 1856, and Garland became a law partner to Ebenezer Cummins, a former associate of Albert Pike.

Garland became one of Arkansas’s most prominent attorneys and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1860.

Later life and death

President Cleveland lost reelection to Benjamin Harrison in the 1888 election and Garland left office at the end of Cleveland’s term in 1889. He resumed practicing law in Washington, D.C. and published a number of books, including The Constitution As It Is (1880), Experience in the Supreme Court of the United States, with Some Reflections and Suggestions as to that Tribunal (1883), Third-Term Presidential (1896), Experience in the Supreme Court of the United States (1898) and Treatise on the Constitution and Jurisdiction of the United States Courts (1898).

On January 26, 1899, while arguing a case before the Supreme Court, Garland suffered a stroke and died a few hours later in the Capitol. He was interned Mount Holly Cemetery in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Entrance into politics

Garland was a supporter of the Whig and American "Know Nothing" parties during the 1850s and was a presidential elector in the Arkansas Electoral College for the Constitutional Union Party in the election of 1860, voting for the party’s nominees of John Bell and Edward Everett.

Civil War

The election of Republican Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States led to the secession of the Deep South states from the Union. Garland consistently opposed secession and advocated Arkansas’s continued allegiance to the United States. He was elected to represent Pulaski County at the 1861 secession convention in Little Rock, where he voiced his opposition. After Lincoln called for 75,000 troops from Arkansas to help suppress the Confederate States, Garland reluctantly gave his support to secession.