In announcing the 1884
death of Elbert Hartwell English, the Arkansas Gazette
reported, "No one was ever so closely or conspicuously
and for so long a period identified with the judiciary
of the state."1 English was the fourth person to
serve as chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court,
and his twenty years of cumulative service as head of
the high court spanned the tumultuous decades that included
the Civil War and Reconstruction. By the time of his
death he had held the post of chief justice under the
Arkansas Constitutions of 1836, 1861, 1868, and 1874.
English was born in Alabama
in 1816 and received his law license in 1839. He practiced
law for the next four years, during which he served
two terms in the Alabama legislature, before moving
to Arkansas in 1844. Shortly after his arrival in the
state the Arkansas Supreme Court named English the reporter
of its opinions, and over the next nine years he published
eight volumes of reports. These eight volumes were originally
titled "English's Reports," but in 1853 the
supreme court ended the practice of naming reports after
the reporter, and English's Reports became volumes 6
through 13 of the Arkansas Reports. In 1846 the General
Assembly selected English to prepare a codification
of its statutes that was published in 1848 as the Digest
of the Statutes of Arkansas.
Under the Arkansas Constitution
of 1836 supreme court justices were elected by the General
Assembly. When Chief Justice George Watkins resigned
in 1854, the legislature elected English to serve out
the last six years of Watkins' term and in 1860 reelected
English to a full eight-year term.
The Arkansas Secession
Convention that met during May 1861 adopted a Confederate
state constitution, the schedule to which provided that
all public officials holding office under the Constitution
of 1836 continued to hold their respective offices under
the new constitution. From 1861 to 1863 English presided
over a Confederate state supreme court that met two
terms a year despite a dwindling case load due to the
closure of many lower courts, particularly in the northern
half of the state. When Little Rock fell to Union forces
in September 1863, the supreme court moved with the
Confederate state government to the town of Washington
in Hempstead County. Although a Unionist state government
with its own supreme court was formed in Little Rock
in the spring of 1864, the Confederate supreme court,
with English as its chief justice, continued to meet
and issue decisions from the Hempstead County courthouse
until the final collapse of the Confederate state government
in April 1865.
Because he was an official
of the Confederate state government, English was not
eligible for the general presidential pardon issued
immediately after the war ended. His right to vote was
restored in 1867 when he was individually pardoned by
President Andrew Johnson, but he was disfranchised a
second time when Arkansas adopted the Constitution of
1868. Three years later the General Assembly passed
a special act that restored all political and civil
disabilities imposed on English by the Constitution
of 1868.
The Republican Party that
controlled state government during the post-war period
eventually split into two factions. In the 1872 general
election one of the factions nominated Elisha Baxter
for governor, and the other faction chose Joseph Brooks
to head its ticket. Baxter was declared the winner and
sworn into office, but Brooks contested the election
in the state courts. In May 1873 Baxter retained English
to represent him in the election contest. The legal
skirmishing between the two claimants continued for
almost a year. On April 13, 1874, while English was
in federal court, Pulaski County Circuit Judge John
Whytock called up the case of Brooks v. Baxter
and declared Brooks the governor. Brooks and his supporters
immediately seized control of the state capitol, thereby
precipitating the Brooks-Baxter War. Baxter called a
special session of the General Assembly, which sided
with Baxter. Brooks' coup d'etat ended abruptly after
President Grant declared his support for Baxter. The
General Assembly then impeached and suspended from office
three of the five justices of the supreme court, including
the chief justice, and Governor Baxter appointed English
to replace the impeached chief justice. When voters
approved a new state constitution in October 1874, they
elected English to head the supreme court created by
Article 7 of the constitution.
English was reelected
chief justice in 1880 and served until his death on
September 1, 1884, in Asheville, North Carolina, where
he was vacationing from the Arkansas summer heat. His
body was returned to Little Rock, where it lay in state
at the capitol before being interred at Mount Holly
Cemetery.•
1. "Chief Justice English Dead," Ark. Gazette,
Sept. 2, 1884, at 4. |
