James Campbell Hopkins was an American lawyer and politician. He as a postmaster at the village of Granville, member of the judiciary committee, and federal judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.
Background
James Campbell Hopkins was born on April 27, 1819 in Pawlet, Vermont, United States. He was the son of Ervin Hopkins, a farmer who had been educated at Middlebury College, and the grandson of James Hopkins, an early Vermont settler from Rhode Island who served under Ethan Allen during the Revolution. When James Campbell was a small boy his family moved across the state line into the adjoining county of Washington, New York, and settled at Granville, where he worked on the farm, attended the rural school, and, for a brief period, went into North Granville to the academy.
Education
Hopkins' education had been meager, but five years of earnest study under the supervision of friendly counselors, coupled with native talent and power of sustained application, gave him no mean equipment for the profession.
Career
Hopkins was admitted to the bar in the January 1845 term of the supreme court at Albany. He began practice in association with his former preceptors and soon won standing and reputation. By appointment of President Fillmore he served as postmaster at the village of Granville for five years.
In 1853 he was elected to the state senate in which he became a member of the important judiciary committee and an influential senator, but in 1855 he was defeated for reelection by his Know-Nothing opponent. This political disappointment was probably the cause of his removal to the new state of Wisconsin, where in 1856 he settled at Madison in association with Harlow S. Orton. Equipped by his experience in the New York legal system, which had trained him not only in the common law but also in the reformed code of procedure, Hopkins performed the principal work of arranging that code for Wisconsin and of adapting it to the constitutional and judicial system of the younger state.
On July 9, 1870, he was commissioned by President Grant to the bench of the newly created federal court for the western district of Wisconsin. During the last year of his life he also served as a professor in the law school of the state university along with such distinguished colleagues as I. C. Sloan and William P. Lyon. He died at the age of fifty-eight.
Achievements
Hopkins was a prominent politician and judge. His work as judge was distinguished by industry, ability, methodical promptness, kindly courtesy, and unwearied patience. He was particularly strong in equity cases, and in the administration of the bankruptcy law he had no superiors.
Politics
Hopkins was originally a member of the Whig party, but then he allied himself with the newly organized Republican party. Later he no longer manifested ambition for political honors.
Personality
Hopkins was a cautious, safe counselor, familiar with business life and affairs, and endowed with sound, practical judgment. While not gifted with marked power of eloquence, he was an excellent trial lawyer, winning his cases by thorough preparation, wide knowledge of the law, and his ability to persuade.
Connections
In 1845 Hopkins married Mary Allen at Schaghticoke, New York; later they divorced. His second wife, Cornelia Bradley of Beloit, Wisconsin, and his children survived him.
