Background

George Bemis was born on October 13, 1816, in Waltham, Massachussets, a member of a well-known Massachusetts family. Joseph Bemis, the original immigrant, had come from England and settled at Watertown in 1640, his descendants for 150 years continuing to live there. Seth Bemis, a Watertown manufacturer and Harvard graduate, married Sarah Wheeler of Concord and moved to Waltham, Massachussets.

Education

Having been fitted for college at the school of the Rev. Samuel Ripley in Waltham, George proceeded to Harvard where he graduated with distinction in 1835. Entering the Harvard Law School he obtained the degree of LL. B. in 1839, and on being admitted to the Boston bar in the same year, commenced practise in that city. While at the Law School he had been a Sunday school teacher at the State Prison at Charlestown, and had become keenly interested in the subject of crime, punishment, and reform.

Career

On becoming a lawyer, one of Bemis’s first steps was to attack the system of cumulative punishment of offenders which then prevailed in Massachusetts. As a result of his efforts the whole system of punishment in the state was radically changed. In the meanwhile he was becoming known as an expert in the more difficult phases of criminal law. The case which established his reputation was that of the Commonwealth vs. Rogers, a convict who was tried in 1844 for murder of the warden of the prison in which he was confined. Involving the law of insanity and uncontrollable impulse as an excuse for homicide, it attracted wide attention and his defense was considered masterly. In 1850 he was associate counsel with the attorney-general for the prosecution in the trial of Dr. Webster for the murder of Dr. Parkman, most of the heavy detail work being undertaken by him. After the trial he published a complete report of the proceedings.

In 1858 Bemis was compelled to retire from active practise owing to a severe hemorrhage of the lungs, and thereafter his health continued so impaired that he spent the remainder of his life abroad. Financially independent, he turned his attention to public international law and rendered valuable assistance to the United States Government in connection with the Alabama claims. He also contributed to the public discussion of the rights and duties of neutrals in the following pamphlets: Precedents of American Neutrality, in Reply to the Speech of Sir Roundell Palmer in the British House of Commons (1864); Hasty Recognition of Rebel Belligerency and Our Right to Complain of It (1865); American Neutrality, Its Honorable Past, Its Expedient Future (1866); and Mr. Reverdy Johnson: The Alabama Negotiations, Their Just Repudiation by the Senate of the United States (1869). Though necessarily controversial in character these writings were distinguished for their uniformly high level of thought and an absence of prejudice which stamped their author as a publicist of outstanding merit.

Bemis died at Nice, France, January 5, 1878.

Achievements

• George Bemis has been listed as a noteworthy legal publicist by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

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• book

  • Hasty Recognition of Rebel Belligerency, and Our Right to Complain of it

    ( About the Book The American Civil War, which broke out ...)

  • Precedents of American Neutrality: In Reply to the Speech of Sir Roundell Palmer, Attorney-General of England, in the British House of Commons, May 13, 1864

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • Report of the Case of John W. Webster: ... Indicted for the Murder of George Parkman ... Before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; Including ... for a Commutation of Sentence, and an...

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

Connections

George Bemis never married.

Father:

Seth Bemis

Mother:

Sarah (Wheeler) Bemis

References

• Mr. Reverdy Johnson: the Alabama negotiations and their just repudiation by the Senate of the United States