James C. Carter

James C. Carter
After an etching on copper plate by James S. King, copyrighted and published by Charles Barmore of New York.
Born(1827-10-14)October 14, 1827
Lancaster, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedFebruary 14, 1905(1905-02-14) (aged 77)
New York City, New York, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationDerby Academy
Alma materHarvard College
Harvard Law School
OccupationLawyer

James Coolidge Carter (October 14, 1827 – February 14, 1905) was a New York City lawyer, a partner in the firm that eventually became Carter Ledyard & Milburn, which he helped found in 1854.

Early life

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Carter was born on October 14, 1827, in Lancaster, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of eight children born to Maj. Solomon Carter.[1]

He prepared for college at Derby Academy in Hingham.[1] He graduated from Harvard College in 1850 and Harvard Law School in 1853.[2] While at Harvard, he was a member of the Institute of 1777 the Hasty Pudding Club, Alpha Delta Phi, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society.[1]

Career

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Portrait of Carter by John Singer Sargent, 1899.

Carter entered the law office of Edward Kent, son of Chancellor James Kent, in New York, and in 1853 was admitted to the bar, starting a prominent law practice which later became known as Carter Ledyard & Milburn.[1]

He was one of the founders and the first president of the National Civic League. In 1875, Governor Samuel J. Tilden appointed him a member of the commission to devise a form of municipal administration for cities in the state of New York, and in 1888, Governor David B. Hill appointed him a member of the Constitutional Commission. In 1892, he was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison as counsel, with Edward J. Phelps and Judge Henry Williams Blodgett, to present the claims of the United States before the Bering Sea tribunal.[3][4] He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1895 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1896.[5][6]

Political Mugwump

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Carter was an influential legal theorist among fellow Mugwumps. He deeply distrusted politicians and most elected officials. Instead he put his trust in disinterested experts, especially judges. He equated common law with custom, and his condemnation of legislation inconsistent with custom, reflected his Mugwumpism. He tried to synthesize traditional thinking with modernity. For example, Carter clung to support for active government intervention he learned from the antebellum Whigs, but he more and more embrace antigovernment positions typical of antebellum Jacksonians. He tried to synthesize traditional faith in timeless, objective moral principles with a more modern vision of evolving customary norms. Given growing problems of industrial urban society he saw the need for positive government but wanted judges to rule not politicians.[7]

Resistance to codification

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Carter was the leader of the resistance to the codification movement led by David Dudley Field II.[8][9] It is because of Carter's vigorous opposition to Field that the state of New York repeatedly refused to enact Field's civil code.[8][9] As a result of Carter's efforts, large portions of contract and tort law remain mostly uncodified in New York and a majority of U.S. states, and exist in those states only in the form of case law.

Personal life

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After an illness of a few days,[1] he died at 7 East 88th Street (a Beaux-Arts townhouse built in 1903 by architects James R. Turner and William G. Killian),[10] his residence in New York City on February 14, 1905.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17] In New York, his funeral was held at All Souls' Church on Fourth Avenue and 22nd Street.[18] Another funeral was conducted by the Rev. Prof. Francis Greenwood Peabody of Harvard and was held at the Mount Auburn Chapel at Cambridge where he was buried.[19]

Legacy

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In 1897, he donated $5,000 towards the construction of the Randolph Tucker Memorial Hall at Washington and Lee University, estimated at that time to cost $50,000.[20]

Works

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  • The Provinces of the Written and the Unwritten Law: An Address Delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Virginia Bar Association, at White Alpha Springs, July 25, 1889. New York and Albany: Banks & Brothers Law Publishers. 1889. Retrieved 25 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  • Law, Its Origin, Growth and Function: Being a Course of Lectures Prepared for Delivery before the Law School of Harvard University. London and New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1907. Retrieved 25 February 2024 – via Internet Archive.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "JAMES C. CARTER DIES AFTER BRIEF ILLNESS; Distinguished Member of New York Bar Succumbs at Home. HAD OVERTAXED STRENGTH His Long Career in the Practice of Law, and His Services for Municipal Reform". The New York Times. 15 February 1905. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  2. ^ Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Carter, James Coolidge" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
  3. ^ Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Carter, James Coolidge" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
  4. ^ Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). "Carter, James Coolidge" . Encyclopedia Americana.
  5. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  6. ^ "James Coolidge Carter | American Academy of Arts and Sciences". www.amacad.org. 2023-02-09. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  7. ^ Lewis A. Grossman (2002). "James Coolidge Carter and Mugwump Jurisprudence". Law and History Review. 20 (3): 577–629. JSTOR 1556320.
  8. ^ a b Reimann, Mathias (Winter 1989). "The Historical School Against Codification: Savigny, Carter, and the Defeat of the New York Civil Code". American Journal of Comparative Law. 37 (1): 95–119. JSTOR 840443.
  9. ^ a b Masferrer, Aniceto (October 2008). "Defense of the Common Law Against Postbellum American Codification: Reasonable and Fallacious Argumentation". American Journal of Legal History. 50 (4): 355–430. JSTOR 25734135.
  10. ^ Cohen, Michelle (October 12, 2017). "Options are many for this five-story $30M Beaux-Arts limestone townhouse on Museum Mile". 6sqft. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  11. ^ Hicks, Frederick Charles (1929). "Carter, James Coolidge". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  12. ^ Schlup, Leonard C.; Ryan, James G. (2003). Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age. M.E. Sharpe. p. 80. ISBN 0-7656-2106-1. Extract of page 80
  13. ^ Miller, George Alfred (1909). "James Coolidge Carter. 1827-1905.". In W. D. Lewis (ed.). Great American Lawyers. Vol. VIII. pp. 1–41.
  14. ^ "The City Club's New Home," New York Times (October 3, 1892).
  15. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter C" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved September 11, 2016.
  16. ^ George W. Martin, Causes and Conflicts: The Centennial History of The Association of the Bar of the City of New York (1870-1970), Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1970.
  17. ^ Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Reports 36, p. 41.
  18. ^ "JAMES C. CARTER'S FUNERAL.; Bench and Bar Represented at the Service". The New York Times. 18 February 1905. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  19. ^ Times, Special to The New York (19 February 1905). "JAMES C. CARTER'S FUNERAL.; Services Conducted in Mount Auburn Chapel at Cambridge". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 March 2023.
  20. ^ "GIFT FROM JAMES C. CARTER.; $5,000 to Help Erect a Building for Washington and Lee University". The New York Times. 29 June 1897. Retrieved 16 March 2023.

Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to James C. Carter.
  • Grossman, Lewis A. "James Coolidge Carter and Mugwump Jurisprudence." Law and History Review 20.3 (2002): 577-629. online
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