# John Archibald Campbell *American jurist (1811–1889); Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1853–1861* John Archibald Campbell (June 24, 1811 – March 12, 1889) was an American lawyer and jurist. He practiced law in Georgia and Alabama and sat in the Alabama legislature.[^1] President [[Franklin Pierce]], a Democrat, placed him on the United States Supreme Court in 1853. Campbell left the Court when the American Civil War began, went south, and took an official post with the Confederate States of America.[^1] When the war ended, Campbell was held in federal military detention without formal charges. Wikipedia's lead gives that detention as six months, while its account of the detention dates it from May 30 to October 1865, about five months.[^1] He obtained a pardon and returned to legal practice in New Orleans, where he opposed Reconstruction. He argued the *Slaughterhouse Case* before the Supreme Court and lost.[^1] ## Early life and education Campbell's birthplace was near Washington, in Wilkes County, Georgia. His mother was the former Mary Williamson. His father, Col. Duncan Greene Campbell, was an attorney who served for many years as a trustee of Franklin College, the institution that later became the University of Georgia.[^1] In 1824, while the son was a student, President James Monroe named Duncan Campbell and another man to negotiate the purchase of Creek lands.[^1] The younger Campbell finished at the University of Georgia in 1825, aged 14. He then spent three years at the United States Military Academy. He would have graduated in 1830, but he left after learning in July 1828 that his father had died.[^1] At West Point on December 24–25, 1826, he was one of roughly 70 cadets involved in the Eggnog Riot. A subsequent review recommended charges against only 20 cadets and one enlisted soldier.[^1] ## Personal life Campbell moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1830. There he wed Anna Esther Goldthwaite, who had come to Alabama from New Hampshire.[^1] One section of the Wikipedia article gives their children as one son and four daughters, while another gives five daughters and one son. The marriage lasted until Anna's death in 1887, two years before Campbell's own death in 1889.[^1] ## Alabama lawyer and legislator In Montgomery, Campbell built a law practice centered on Spanish land grant titles.[^1] After service in the Creek Indian War of 1836, he won election as a state representative that year and sat as a Jacksonian Democrat. He backed Andrew Jackson's bank veto and opposed nullification while holding moderate states'-rights views.[^1] After one term, Campbell moved his family to Mobile, Alabama. He returned to the legislature for a second term in 1842.[^1] Arguing *Mayor of Mobile v. Eslava* (1849) before the state supreme court, he first set out his doctrine of "original sovereignty." Under that doctrine, new states entering the Union on equal terms with the original 13 states also held sovereignty over the navigable waters inside their borders.[^1] In 1852 he represented Myra Clark Gaines in litigation against Richard Relf.[^1] ## Supreme Court ### Appointment Justice [[John McKinley]] died in 1852, leaving a seat open. President Millard Fillmore, a Whig, put forward three nominees. Each nominee withdrew, declined, or received no action from the Senate, which Democrats controlled.[^1] After Pierce's election, a group of sitting justices recommended Campbell to him. Pierce sent the nomination on March 21, 1853.[^1] Campbell was 41 and had never served as a judge. The Senate confirmed him unanimously within three days, with Northern senators among those voting for him.[^1] ### Constitutional contributions Campbell sat on the Court under Chief Justice [[Roger B. Taney]]. In his concurrence in the Dred Scott case, he invoked the original-sovereignty principle he had first argued in Alabama.[^1] ## American Civil War During March and April 1861, Campbell acted as a go-between for the Lincoln administration and three Confederate commissioners: Martin Crawford, Andre B. Roman, and John Forsyth Jr. Lincoln did not recognize secession and refused official contact with the commissioners, but he allowed Campbell to serve in their place.[^1] On March 15, 1861, Secretary of State William H. Seward told Campbell that Fort Sumter would be evacuated within ten days. Seward repeated the assurance on March 20. Campbell brought Justice [[Samuel Nelson]] to that second meeting as a witness.[^1] On April 8, Lincoln announced publicly that he would resupply Fort Sumter "peacefully, or otherwise by force". The resupply mission led to the Confederate bombardment of the fort and the start of the war.[^1] Campbell resigned from the Court on April 30, 1861, and went south. He was the only southern justice who did so.[^1] He faced lynching threats and was effectively driven out of Alabama for his moderate positions, his opposition to secession, and his mediation efforts. He then settled in New Orleans.[^1] ## Postbellum ### Federal detention Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. Because Campbell had met with Lincoln while acting for the Confederacy, suspicion fell loosely on him. He was arrested on May 30, 1865, and held at Fort Pulaski, Georgia.[^1] No formal charges were brought. After his former colleagues Justices Benjamin R. Curtis and Samuel Nelson intervened, he was released in October 1865.[^1] ### Legal career Federal statutes enacted by Congress barred lawyers who had aided the Confederacy from practicing in federal court. Campbell was able to resume federal practice after *Ex parte Garland* struck that bar down.[^1] He eventually took only cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the *Slaughterhouse Case*, he represented butchers harmed by a Louisiana law that confined slaughterhouses to a single location in New Orleans.[^1] He argued that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause protected their right to pursue a lawful trade. The Court rejected that reading, holding that the clause covered only a limited set of pre-existing federal rights, and the ruling stood for decades.[^1] ## Legacy and honors A World War II Liberty ship built in Brunswick, Georgia, was named SS *John A. Campbell* in his honor.[^1] The John Archibald Campbell United States Courthouse in Mobile, Alabama, dates from 1934. The neighboring Federal Building, built during the Richard Nixon administration, also bears his name.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Archibald Campbell* (revid 1363389700, retrieved 2026-10-26; CC BY-SA 4.0) — biographical record of Campbell's birth, education, Alabama career, 1853 nomination and confirmation, 1861 mediation and resignation, 1865 detention, postwar practice, and namesakes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Campbell