# Edward Douglass White *Associate justice (1894–1910) and ninth Chief Justice of the United States (1910–1921)* Edward Douglass White Jr. (November 3, 1845 – May 19, 1921) was a Louisiana lawyer and [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] politician who sat on the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] for 27 years.[^1] President Grover Cleveland put him on the Court as an associate justice in 1894. In 1910 President [[William Howard Taft]], a [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], made him chief justice, and he held that office until he died in 1921.[^1] His judicial record includes a vote with the majority in *Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896), which upheld state laws segregating public facilities under the "separate but equal" standard. He also wrote opinions in *Talton v. Mayes*, *Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock*, *Guinn v. United States* and the *Selective Draft Law Cases*.[^1] Before he entered public life he served as an officer in the Confederate army.[^1] White's one documented tie to [[Minnesota]] is a secondhand account of a dinner conversation after the war with Senator [[Knute Nelson]] of Minnesota. In that conversation White placed himself among the besieged garrison at Port Hudson.[^1] Minnesota-record entries captioned *Republican Party of Minnesota v. White* were decided in 2002, after White's death, and do not concern him.[^2] ## Early life and education White was born on November 3, 1845, on his family's sugar plantation in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, near Thibodaux and roughly 30 miles west of New Orleans.[^1] His father, Edward Douglass White Sr., was a lawyer and judge who had been a Whig U.S. Representative and the 10th Governor of Louisiana. The elder White's plantation used the labor of dozens of enslaved people.[^1] His mother, Catherine Sidney Lee Ringgold, descended from the Lee family of Virginia, which made White a distant relation of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.[^1] His father died in April 1847. His mother remarried in 1850, and the family moved to New Orleans the next year.[^1] White began at a Jesuit school in New Orleans at age six. He attended Mount St. Mary's College in Maryland from 1856 and enrolled at Georgetown University in 1858.[^1] When the Civil War broke out he went home without finishing a degree.[^1] ## Confederate soldier and Reconstruction White joined the Confederate States Army and served under General Richard Taylor, reaching the rank of lieutenant.[^1] Much of the detail of his service is disputed. One account, described as apocryphal, has him escaping capture near Bayou Lafourche in October 1862. No documentation places him in a Confederate unit that campaigned in the Lafourche area.[^1] His presence at Port Hudson, Louisiana, during the 1863 siege rests on two secondhand sources. One is a postwar dinner conversation with Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, a Union veteran of that siege. The other is an account recounted by Admiral George Dewey.[^1] White's name does not appear on any list of prisoners taken at Port Hudson. A story that he was held in a Mississippi prison camp is judged likely untrue.[^1] The same source's summary nonetheless states that he was captured in 1865.[^1] ## Political career White studied law at the University of Louisiana in New Orleans, the present Tulane University Law School. He was admitted to the bar and opened a practice in New Orleans in 1868, mentored by Edouard Bermudez.[^1] He sat in the Louisiana State Senate in 1874, a year of interracial violence in the state's campaigns and elections. From 1878 to 1880 he was a justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court.[^1] White was aligned with Francis T. Nicholls, a former Confederate general who served twice as governor. He managed Nicholls' campaign in the 1888 gubernatorial election. The source records that election as marked by fraud and by intimidation of African American voters to secure Nicholls' win.[^1] In 1891 the Louisiana legislature chose White to succeed James B. Eustis in the [[United States Senate]], where he served as a Democrat until 1894.[^1] ## United States Supreme Court ### Associate justice On February 19, 1894, Cleveland nominated White to the Court. The Senate had already rejected his two previous nominees, William B. Hornblower and Wheeler Hazard Peckham, but it confirmed White by voice vote on the day of his nomination. He took the judicial oath on March 12, 1894.[^1] In 1896 White joined the 7–1 majority in *Plessy v. Ferguson*. The decision held racial segregation laws for public facilities constitutional provided the separate facilities were equal in quality.[^1] In the Insular Cases he concurred in the 5–4 result in *Downes v. Bidwell* (1901). That decision held that territories annexed after the Spanish–American War were, in several constitutional respects, not fully part of the United States. White wrote that guarantees of a citizen's liberty and property "cannot be under any circumstances transcended."[^1] ### Chief justice Taft nominated White as Chief Justice of the United States on December 12, 1910, after the death of [[Melville Fuller]]. The Senate again confirmed him by voice vote on the day of nomination.[^1] He was the first sitting associate justice to be elevated to chief justice. [[John Rutledge]], a former associate justice, had received a recess appointment to the post in 1795.[^1] Contemporaries were surprised that a Republican president had chosen a Democrat. White held the office until his death in 1921, and Taft succeeded him.[^1] ## Personal life and death On November 6, 1894, in New York City, White married Leita Montgomery Kent, the widow of Linden Kent. He had first proposed to her before her earlier marriage.[^1] He was raised in the Roman Catholic faith of his Irish Catholic paternal line and remained Catholic throughout his life.[^1] A sudden heart attack killed him on May 19, 1921, at age 75. He was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C.[^1] ## Legacy and honors The University of Notre Dame gave White its Laetare Medal in 1914. His statue is one of two honoring Louisiana natives in National Statuary Hall.[^1] A Bryant Baker statue of White, dedicated April 8, 1926, stood outside the Louisiana Supreme Court building in New Orleans until it was taken down in December 2020.[^1] Louisiana State University Law Center hosts the annual Edward Douglass White Lectures. Speakers have included Chief Justices [[Warren E. Burger]] and William H. Rehnquist.[^1] In 1995 White was inducted posthumously into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame. A Catholic high school in Thibodaux and the World War II Liberty ship SS *Edward D. White* were named for him.[^1] Two Knights of Columbus councils once named for White no longer carry his name. The council in Arlington, Virginia, dropped it in August 2020. The council serving Bogota and Teaneck, New Jersey, changed its name, according to the source, because of contemporary societal views on slavery.[^1] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota, a Union veteran of the siege of Port Hudson, is the source of one of the two secondhand accounts placing White among Port Hudson's defenders.[^1] ### What - *Republican Party of Minnesota v. White*, 536 U.S. 765, decided June 27, 2002, concerned Minnesota's judicial-candidate announce clause. It postdates White's death and does not concern him.[^2] - The record documents no connection between White and the United States' pending action against the State. The [[United States Department of Justice]] announced that action in Office of Public Affairs release No. 26-21 (January 14, 2026), titled *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*. In the same release, Attorney General Pamela Bondi certified the case as a matter of general public importance.[^3] ### When - 1863: the siege of Port Hudson, the event White discussed with Nelson after the war.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Edward Douglass White* (revision 1376637867, retrieved 2026-10-26) — biography: birth, family, Confederate service and disputed accounts including the Knute Nelson conversation, political career, Supreme Court service, death and honors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Douglass_White [^2]: Supreme Court of the United States, *Republican Party of Minnesota v. White*, 536 U.S. 765 (June 27, 2002) — the decision on Minnesota's judicial announce clause, decided long after Edward Douglass White's death. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/536/765/ [^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*, release No. 26-21 (January 14, 2026) — announcement of the suit; certification by Attorney General Pamela Bondi. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-department-justice-files-lawsuit-against-minnesotas-affirmative-action-regime