Background
John Bannister Gibson was the son of Col. George Gibson and Anne West of Scotch- Irish descent. Born on November 8, 1780, at Westover Mills, Pennsylvania, he passed his youth in that neighborhood.
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John Bannister Gibson was the son of Col. George Gibson and Anne West of Scotch- Irish descent. Born on November 8, 1780, at Westover Mills, Pennsylvania, he passed his youth in that neighborhood.
Gibson's early education was obtained from his mother, who, after her husband’s death, lived on the homestead and built a schoolhouse, where she taught the children of the vicinity.
In 1795, he entered the grammar school attached to Dickinson College, Carlisle, matriculating two years later at the latter institution.
On leaving college, he studied law at Carlisle with Thomas Duncan, subsequently a judge of the supreme court of Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the Cumberland County bar, March 8, 1803.
During the following two years, Gibson's course was unsettled and he practiced successively at Carlisle and Beaver, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, but in 1805 returned to Carlisle.
In 1810, however, Gibson was elected Democratic representative of Cumberland County in the state legislature, and in that arena displayed an activity which astonished his intimates and gave evidence of hitherto unsuspected ability.
Serving only during the sessions 1810-11, 1811-12, he procured the passage of an act abolishing the right of survivorship among joint tenants, led the opposition to the impeachment of Judge Thomas Cooper, consistently advocated internal improvements on a large scale, and was during his last session chairman of the committee on the judiciary.
He was named president judge of the newly organized judicial district of the court of common pleas, July 16, 1813, by Gov. Snyder. The appointment was not warranted by his mediocre career as a practicing lawyer, and the absence of records relative to his tenure of this office renders it impossible to generalize, but that he proved efficient may be surmised from his promotion, June 27, 1816, by Gov. Snyder to an associate justiceship of the supreme court of the state.
This apparently aroused his ambition, drawing forth all his dormant intellectual powers, and during his subsequent thirty-seven years’ continuous service on the supreme-court bench he established himself as the dominating figure of the Pennsylvania judiciary, distinguished alike for his breadth of view, his independence, and originality, and the masterful opinions wherein he displayed a facility for forcible exposition and an instinct for grasping the crucial points of the most difficult problems which marked him as one of the greatest jurists of his time.
Appointed chief justice May 18, 1827, by Gov. Schultze on the death of Tilghman, he was confirmed in that office at the ensuing election of 1828.
He resigned November 19, 1838, immediately before the state constitution of 1838 went into effect, and was at once reappointed by Gov. Ritner, the effect of this move being that he was secured in the longest, instead of the shortest, tenure of his office under the new law, which provided for the expiration of existing judges’ commissions at intervals of three years in order of seniority as of January 1, 1839.
His action was unquestionably open to the severe comment to which it was subjected by the press and he afterward realized that he had made a mistake, though the high motives which prompted the inception of the scheme by his admirers and its acceptance by him were admittedly in the best interests of the state.
In 1851, when by virtue of a further constitutional amendment the entire supreme-court bench was retired and new judges balloted for, “the old Chief, ” as he was familiarly termed, was nominated and elected an associate justice, although then over seventy years old and physically incapable of participating in the conflict.
He died two years later in Philadelphia and was buried at Carlisle, his home since 1805 with the exception of three years at Wilkes-Barre whilst on the common pleas bench.
Gibson's judicial record is written at large in seventy volumes of the Pennsylvania Reports from 2 Sergeant and Rawle to 7 Harris. Over six thousand cases came before him for hearing and he delivered reasons for judgment in upwards of twelve hundred, excluding circuit cases of which no record has been preserved. It is the matter for regret that many of them are badly reported; nevertheless, his decisive influence upon the development of the state law can be clearly traced. His opinions range over the whole legal field, but professional judgment accords the greatest respect and authority to those dealing with constitutional problems. Pre-eminent among these is De Chastellux vs. Fairchild, where, thrusting aside precedent, he laid down the limits of the legislative power in phrases the accuracy of which has never since been challenged. Two other cases affecting vital public interests were The Commonwealth vs. Green and Others, dealing with the Presbyterian Church troubles of 1837 - his opinion in which was a masterpiece of cold unbiased dissection and Donoghue vs. the County, arising out of the Philadelphia riots of 1844, in which by his interpretation of the principle that every man’s house is his castle, he settled for all time the common law of Pennsylvania as to riots, and, incidentally, effectively ended the lawlessness which had been sporadic for years in Philadelphia.
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Bred up, as Gibson was wont to assert, in the school of Littleton and Coke, his mastery of the intricate technicalities of real property law was demonstrated in three outstanding cases: Lyle et al. vs. Richards, Hillyard vs. Miller, and Hileman ct al. vs. Bouslaugh.
His opinion in this last case stands out as one of the very rare instances in the United States Reports where the Rule in Shelley’s Case is dealt with, and he discusses its application with a clarity, boldness, and knowledge of all the authorities and commentators unequaled in American courts.
Quotations: “The legislature has no power to order a new trial or to direct the court to order it, either before or after judgment. The power to order new trials is judicial, but the power of the legislature is not judicial. It is limited to the making of laws; not to the exposition or execution of them. . .. It has become the duty of the court to temporize no longer, but to resist, temperately, though firmly, any invasion of its province, whether great or small. ”
At the bar, Gibson achieved but a small measure of success. Lacking magnetism, he was an indifferent advocate, unable to convince a jury or impress a judge. When not engaged in conference or in court, he was wont to practice on the violin in his office, in which occupation the majority of his business hours were spent, and he seems to have acquired a local reputation for indolence.
At his best when the court was sitting in banc, he was less successful at nisi prius, and jury trials were always irksome to him. In his opinions, he avoided where possible any survey of precedents, seeking rather found his decision upon principles.
Couched in terse, vigorous language, startlingly epigrammatic at times, his reasons for judgment were distinguished by their clarity and brevity - and the longer he remained on the bench the briefer they tended to become.
Beyond his reported opinions and an occasional anonymous review for the American Law Register, the only literary compositions which can be traced to his pen are “Some Account of the Rev. Charles Nisbet, first President of Dickenson College” in the Port Folio, January, and a sketch of the life of Judge Thomas Cooper in the Encyclopaedia Americana.
Gibson (1890), by his grandson, T. P. Roberts, which also contains an account of his ancestry so far as it is known.
Apart from the law, Gibson's interests were extensive and his range of knowledge remarkable. A profound student of Shakespeare, he read widely in French and Italian literature in his leisure, and he had more than an amateur acquaintance with medicine and the fine arts.
He was also a skilled mechanic, an expert piano tuner, and a competent dentist, devising a peculiar plate for his own teeth with complete success after professional assistance had failed him. Above all, however, his chief recreation was music, particularly the violin.
On October 8, 1812, Gibson married Sarah Work, daughter of Col. Andrew and Barbara (Kyle) Galbraith of Carlisle, who, together with five of their eight children survived him.
25 January 1791 - 25 January 1861
6 December 1817 - 28 August 1857
31 October 1830 - 11 August 1872
20 November 1814 - 15 December 1893
3 November 1830 - 15 January 1856
