# Howell E. Jackson *American attorney, politician and jurist; Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1893–1895* Howell Edmunds Jackson (April 8, 1832 – August 8, 1895) was a Tennessee lawyer, legislator and judge. He sat as an Associate Justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] from 1893 until he died in 1895.[^1] Benjamin Harrison, a Republican president, named Jackson, a Democrat, to the Court. Jackson's best-known opinion is his dissent in *Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.*, where he maintained that a federal income tax was constitutional.[^1] Before joining the Court, Jackson served in the Tennessee House of Representatives, to which he was elected in 1880, and in the U.S. Senate from 1881. He then sat on the federal circuit court for the Sixth Circuit, where Democratic President Grover Cleveland had placed him.[^1] He died about two years into his Supreme Court service, and the short tenure limited his influence on the law.[^1] ## Early life and career Jackson's birthplace was Paris, Tennessee. He graduated from Western Tennessee College in 1850 and spent two years in post-graduate study at the University of Virginia.[^1] He then read law with A. W. O. Totten, a Tennessee Supreme Court justice, and with former Congressman Milton Brown. He completed Cumberland Law School in a single year, graduating in 1856, and was admitted to the bar that year.[^1] His practice in the town of Jackson, Tennessee, appears to have gone poorly. In 1857 he relocated to [[Memphis]] and formed a firm with David M. Currin, which gave him experience in corporate litigation.[^1] Tennessee left the Union in 1861. Although Jackson had opposed secession, he sided with the South. Judge West H. Humphreys appointed him to enforce Confederate sequestration law in western Tennessee. In that post Jackson confiscated and sold property belonging to Union loyalists, and surviving newspaper accounts record auctions of goods ranging from tobacco to dried peaches.[^1] He later sought a judicial commission in the Confederate Army several times without success.[^1] ## Service in state government In 1875 Jackson was named a judge of the temporary Court of Arbitration for Western Tennessee, which heard cases from the backlog created by the Civil War.[^1] After that court was dissolved, he sought the Democratic nomination for a Tennessee Supreme Court seat against the incumbent, Thomas J. Freeman. He lost at the convention by one vote.[^1] On the state's debt, the main political dispute of the period, Jackson took the state-credit side and regarded repudiation as immoral. In 1880 he won a Madison County seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives.[^1] The legislature then deadlocked over the choice of a U.S. Senator, and it settled on Jackson as a consensus candidate backed by members of both parties.[^1] ## Senate tenure Jackson was seated in the Senate on March 4, 1881. He served on the Post Office, Pensions, Claims and Judiciary committees.[^1] He advocated civil service reform and the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission. He also backed further limits on Chinese immigration, lower tariffs and more infrastructure spending.[^1] He formed a friendship with Grover Cleveland and supported Cleveland's tariff policies. He was also on friendly terms with Benjamin Harrison, who sat beside him on the Senate floor.[^1] ## Circuit judge Federal judge John Baxter died in 1886. Cleveland asked Jackson to recommend replacements but then offered the Sixth Circuit seat to Jackson himself and pressed him until he accepted.[^1] The Senate confirmed him unanimously. Over seven years on that court he heard many patent cases.[^1] In 1889 he urged President Harrison to elevate his circuit colleague [[Henry Billings Brown]] to the Supreme Court. Harrison did not do so that year, but he appointed Brown to a later vacancy the following year.[^1] *In re Greene* (1892) was the first case in which a federal court applied the Sherman Antitrust Act. Jackson threw out an indictment of whiskey producers on the ground that they were not keeping other firms out of the market.[^1] His narrow reading of the Act shaped later antitrust cases, including *United States v. E. C. Knight Co.* (1895).[^1] In *United States v. Patrick* (1893), by contrast, he read the Civil Rights Act of 1870 broadly. The defendants in that case were Tennessee residents charged with killing federal officers who were searching for an illegal still.[^1] ## Supreme Court nomination Justice Lucius Q. C. Lamar died on January 23, 1893. Cleveland had already won the 1892 election, which left Harrison a lame duck facing a Senate controlled by Democrats. That Senate would probably have held any Republican nominee until Cleveland took office.[^1] Brown, now on the Supreme Court, suggested Jackson to Harrison. Harrison nominated Jackson on February 2, and after an initial delay in committee the Senate confirmed him unanimously on February 18.[^1] On the morning of March 4, [[Melville Fuller]] administered Jackson's oath. A few hours later Fuller swore in Cleveland as president.[^1] ## Supreme Court service Jackson's service on the Court ran from March 4, 1893, to August 8, 1895. In that time he wrote forty-six opinions. His poor health and lack of seniority meant that many of them came in minor cases, especially patent disputes.[^1] ### Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. The 1894 Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act imposed a two percent tax on personal income above four thousand dollars. The plaintiff in *Pollock* argued that this was a direct tax that had not been apportioned among the states.[^1] Jackson was ill when the case was first heard. The other eight justices struck down certain other provisions of the act but divided 4–4 on the income tax.[^1] When Jackson indicated that he could return, the Court reheard the case, and the lawyers directed their arguments at him as the expected deciding vote. Jackson's dissent defended the tax as constitutional.[^1] ## Personal life In 1859 Jackson married Sophie Malloy, the daughter of a Memphis banker. They had six children, two of whom died in infancy, before her death in 1873.[^1] The next year he married Mary Harding, daughter of W. G. Harding, and they had three children. One of them, William H. Jackson, became a judge of the United States District Court for the Canal Zone.[^1] After Harding died in 1886, Jackson, his brother William Hicks Jackson and their wives inherited the Belle Meade Plantation. Jackson sold his share of the horses to his brother in 1890.[^1] He was an elder of the First Presbyterian Church of Nashville.[^1] ## Legacy Legal scholars surveyed in 1972 rated Jackson a "below average" justice but declined to classify him as a "failure".[^1] Timothy L. Hall writes that Jackson "would probably never have been a great Supreme Court justice". Roger D. Hardaway argues that Jackson's work merits a prominent place in Tennessee history.[^1] A Liberty ship, the SS Howell E. Jackson, bore his name.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Howell E. Jackson* (revision 1378505627, retrieved 2026-10-26) — Jackson's birth, education, legal career, Confederate service, state and Senate career, circuit and Supreme Court service, the *Pollock* case, personal life and legacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howell_E._Jackson