Thomas Drummond (judge)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Drummond was a United States federal judge
.
Born in Bristol Mills, Maine, Drummond graduated from Bowdoin College
in 1830, and read law to enter the Bar in Philadelphia in 1833. He had a private practice in Galena, Illinois
, from 1835 to 1850. In addition to practicing law, he served as a member of the Illinois General Assembly
from 1840-1841 as a Whig
; during this time he became acquainted with fellow Whig Assemblyman Abraham Lincoln
. Drummond served as a judge for the Circuit Court of Illinois from about 1841 to about 1850.
On January 31, 1850, President
Zachary Taylor
, a Whig
like Drummond, nominated Drummond to the United States District Court for the District of Illinois (which at that time had only one seat); he replaced Nathaniel Pope
, who had died recently. Drummond was confirmed by the United States Senate
, and received his commission, on February 19, 1850.
On February 13, 1855, Illinois was subdivided into two judicial districts, with one judge assigned to each district; Drummond was assigned to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
, which sat in Chicago
. Chicago in the 1850s had a bustling port on Lake Michigan
and as the only federal judge in Chicago, Drummond had jurisdiction to hear cases in admiralty law
, a field in which he possessed considerable expertise. The federal court also had jurisdiction over patent law, and Drummond heard several major patent cases, including one involving Cyrus McCormick
.
In 1860, Drummond presided over the trial of abolitionist John Hossack
, who was accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
for helping a fugitive slave
escape from slave catchers; a jury found Hossack guilty, but recommended mercy, and Drummond sentenced him to only ten days in prison.
During his time at the Northern District, Drummond presided over approximately a dozen cases tried by Abraham Lincoln
, who was renowned as one of the greatest lawyers of his day. Shortly before the United States presidential election, 1860
, Drummond and several prominent Chicago lawyers hosted a dinner attended by both Lincoln and one of his rivals, Stephen A. Douglas
. After Lincoln's election, Drummond was mentioned as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States
, but Lincoln ultimately opted to appoint David Davis
, who had served as Lincoln's campaign manager
.
Like Lincoln, Drummond became a supporter of the Republican Party
in the course of the 1850s. At the outbreak of the American Civil War
in 1861, Drummond was an outspoken supporter of the Union
. When the Union instituted a draft
in 1863, Drummond presided over trials of draft dodgers. He also issued an injunction
against the Chicago and Moline Water Power Company, ordering them to dismantle a dam
built across the Mississippi River
that interfered with the Rock Island Arsenal
.
In 1863, Union Army
General Ambrose Burnside
ordered the Chicago Times
closed because it had run articles highly critical of President Lincoln and his cabinet
. The case was brought to Drummond, who ruled that the paper could continue publishing until the case was decided. When Union troops stopped the presses anyway, Drummond was outraged, and met with prominent Chicago citizens to organize an enormous meeting of 20,000 people in front of the Cook County Courthouse to protest Burnside's heavihandedness and insisting on freedom of speech
and civilian control of the military
. Two days later, the city learned that Lincoln had rescinded Burnside's order.
On December 8, 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant
nominated Drummond to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
, to a new seat created by 16 Stat. 44. Drummond was confirmed by the Senate, and received his commission, on December 22, 1869.
In the wake of the Panic of 1873
, nearly all midwestern railroads went into receivership
and Drummond oversaw their reorganization
. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877
, Drummond argued that railroads were analogous to public highways and therefore deserved the protection of the courts. At his request, federal troops were sent in to prevent railroad strikes - strikers who defied his order were imprisoned for contempt of court
.
Drummond retired on July 18, 1884. He died in Wheaton, Illinois
.
United States federal judge
In the United States, the title of federal judge usually means a judge appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate in accordance with Article II of the United States Constitution....
.
Born in Bristol Mills, Maine, Drummond graduated from Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
in 1830, and read law to enter the Bar in Philadelphia in 1833. He had a private practice in Galena, Illinois
Galena, Illinois
Galena is the county seat of, and largest city in, Jo Daviess County, Illinois in the United States, with a population of 3,429 in 2010. The city is a popular tourist destination known for its history, historical architecture, and ski and golf resorts. Galena was the residence of Ulysses S...
, from 1835 to 1850. In addition to practicing law, he served as a member of the Illinois General Assembly
Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois and comprises the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Illinois has 59 legislative districts, with two...
from 1840-1841 as a Whig
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
; during this time he became acquainted with fellow Whig Assemblyman Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Drummond served as a judge for the Circuit Court of Illinois from about 1841 to about 1850.
On January 31, 1850, President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 12th President of the United States and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass...
, a Whig
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
like Drummond, nominated Drummond to the United States District Court for the District of Illinois (which at that time had only one seat); he replaced Nathaniel Pope
Nathaniel Pope
Nathaniel Pope was a politician and jurist from the U.S. state of Illinois.-Early life, education, and career:...
, who had died recently. Drummond was confirmed by the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
, and received his commission, on February 19, 1850.
On February 13, 1855, Illinois was subdivided into two judicial districts, with one judge assigned to each district; Drummond was assigned to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is the trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois....
, which sat in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. Chicago in the 1850s had a bustling port on Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron...
and as the only federal judge in Chicago, Drummond had jurisdiction to hear cases in admiralty law
Admiralty law
Admiralty law is a distinct body of law which governs maritime questions and offenses. It is a body of both domestic law governing maritime activities, and private international law governing the relationships between private entities which operate vessels on the oceans...
, a field in which he possessed considerable expertise. The federal court also had jurisdiction over patent law, and Drummond heard several major patent cases, including one involving Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans....
.
In 1860, Drummond presided over the trial of abolitionist John Hossack
John Hossack
John Hossack was a Scottish-American abolitionist whose home, John Hossack House, was a "station" on the Underground Railroad...
, who was accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial acts of the 1850 compromise and heightened...
for helping a fugitive slave
Fugitive slave
In the history of slavery in the United States, "fugitive slaves" were slaves who had escaped from their master to travel to a place where slavery was banned or illegal. Many went to northern territories including Pennsylvania and Massachusetts until the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed...
escape from slave catchers; a jury found Hossack guilty, but recommended mercy, and Drummond sentenced him to only ten days in prison.
During his time at the Northern District, Drummond presided over approximately a dozen cases tried by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
, who was renowned as one of the greatest lawyers of his day. Shortly before the United States presidential election, 1860
United States presidential election, 1860
The United States presidential election of 1860 was a quadrennial election, held on November 6, 1860, for the office of President of the United States and the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the American Civil War. The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on questions surrounding the...
, Drummond and several prominent Chicago lawyers hosted a dinner attended by both Lincoln and one of his rivals, Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...
. After Lincoln's election, Drummond was mentioned as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, but Lincoln ultimately opted to appoint David Davis
David Davis (Supreme Court justice)
David Davis was a United States Senator from Illinois and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. He also served as Abraham Lincoln's campaign manager at the 1860 Republican National Convention....
, who had served as Lincoln's campaign manager
Campaign manager
A campaign manager is a paid or volunteer individual, whose role is to coordinate the campaign's operations such as fundraising, advertising, polling, getting out the vote , and other activities supporting the effort, directly.Apart from the candidate, they are often a campaign's most visible leader...
.
Like Lincoln, Drummond became a supporter of the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
in the course of the 1850s. At the outbreak of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in 1861, Drummond was an outspoken supporter of the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
. When the Union instituted a draft
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
in 1863, Drummond presided over trials of draft dodgers. He also issued an injunction
Injunction
An injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
against the Chicago and Moline Water Power Company, ordering them to dismantle a dam
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
built across the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
that interfered with the Rock Island Arsenal
Rock Island Arsenal
The Rock Island Arsenal comprises , located on Arsenal Island, originally known as Rock Island, on the Mississippi River between the cities of Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois. It lies within the state of Illinois. The island was originally established as a government site in 1816, with...
.
In 1863, Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
General Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Burnside
Ambrose Everett Burnside was an American soldier, railroad executive, inventor, industrialist, and politician from Rhode Island, serving as governor and a U.S. Senator...
ordered the Chicago Times
Chicago Times
The Chicago Times was a newspaper in Chicago from 1854 to 1895 when it merged with the Chicago Herald.The Times was founded in 1854, by James W. Sheahan, with the backing of Stephen Douglas, and was identified as a pro-slavery newspaper. In 1861, after the paper was purchased by Wilbur F...
closed because it had run articles highly critical of President Lincoln and his cabinet
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a book by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin published in 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his Cabinet from 1861 to 1865...
. The case was brought to Drummond, who ruled that the paper could continue publishing until the case was decided. When Union troops stopped the presses anyway, Drummond was outraged, and met with prominent Chicago citizens to organize an enormous meeting of 20,000 people in front of the Cook County Courthouse to protest Burnside's heavihandedness and insisting on freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
and civilian control of the military
Civilian control of the military
Civilian control of the military is a doctrine in military and political science that places ultimate responsibility for a country's strategic decision-making in the hands of the civilian political leadership, rather than professional military officers. One author, paraphrasing Samuel P...
. Two days later, the city learned that Lincoln had rescinded Burnside's order.
On December 8, 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...
nominated Drummond to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts:* Central District of Illinois* Northern District of Illinois...
, to a new seat created by 16 Stat. 44. Drummond was confirmed by the Senate, and received his commission, on December 22, 1869.
In the wake of the Panic of 1873
Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 triggered a severe international economic depression in both Europe and the United States that lasted until 1879, and even longer in some countries. The depression was known as the Great Depression until the 1930s, but is now known as the Long Depression...
, nearly all midwestern railroads went into receivership
Receivership
In law, receivership is the situation in which an institution or enterprise is being held by a receiver, a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights." The receivership remedy is an equitable remedy that emerged in...
and Drummond oversaw their reorganization
Restructuring
Restructuring is the corporate management term for the act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of a company for the purpose of making it more profitable, or better organized for its present needs...
. During the Great Railroad Strike of 1877
Great railroad strike of 1877
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began on July 14 in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States and ended some 45 days later after it was put down by local and state militias, and federal troops.-Economic conditions in the 1870s:...
, Drummond argued that railroads were analogous to public highways and therefore deserved the protection of the courts. At his request, federal troops were sent in to prevent railroad strikes - strikers who defied his order were imprisoned for contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
.
Drummond retired on July 18, 1884. He died in Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton is an affluent community located in DuPage County, Illinois, approximately west of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Wheaton is the county seat of DuPage County...
.
Sources
- Richard Cahan, A Court That Shaped America: Chicago's Federal District Court from Abe Lincoln to Abbie Hoffman, Ch. 1 (Northwestern University Press, 2002)