John Faucheraud Grimké

Background

Grimké was born on December 16, 1752, in South Carolina, the son of John Paul and Mary Faucheraud Grimké of Charleston, South Carolina, and was of German and French descent.

Education

Grimké was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (A. B. 1774), and studied law in the Middle Temple.

Career

With twenty-nine other Americans, Grimké petitioned the Lords against the Boston Port Bill. He returned to the colonies in September 1775 and a year later, on September 16, 1776, he was commissioned captain in the South Carolina Continental artillery, rising to lieutenant-colonel. He was deputy adjutant-general for South Carolina and Georgia until made prisoner at the surrender of Charleston, May 12, 1780. After being tried for alleged violation of his parole in March 1781, he considered his parole void and rejoined the Continental Army, remaining until the end of the war. Grimké sat in the state House of Representatives five years, serving as speaker, 1785-1786. At the same time he held a judgeship, dating from 1783, and in 1799 he became senior associate, virtually chief justice. In 1788 he was intendant of Charleston and a member of the convention which ratified the federal Constitution, voting himself for the Constitution. The following year he was made a presidential elector. He took an active interest in the improvement of internal navigation, lent his support to three companies, and served as president of the Catawba River Company. Grimké's most important decisions, those regarding seizures by partisan troops during the Revolution, were relatively conclusive. In appeals sittings he occasionally delivered the opinion of the court. Sometimes arbitrary, he was not popular in his up-country circuit, and in 1811 a committee reported impeachment charges against him, but they failed of the requisite two-thirds vote of the House. He did his best work as a legal compiler in the period of legal reform following the Revolution. Grimké published The South Carolina Justice of Peace (1788), and The Duty of Executors and Administrators (1797). Despite his unpopularity, he contended against legal delays, opposed inheritance by primogeniture, and had a higher opinion of feminine mentality than most men of his day. He died on August 9, 1819 at Long Branch, New Jersey.

Achievements

• Grimké is mainly remembered for serving as Associate justice and Senior Associate Justice of South Carolina's Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions from 1783 until his death.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The South-Carolina justice of peace: containing all the duties, powers, and authorities of that office, as regulated by the laws now of force in this ... to the parish and county magistrate ...

    (The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 ...)

  • The Duty Of Executors And Administrators ...: Shewing Also Who Are Entitled By Law To Be The Administrators Of An Intestate Person : With Full And ... Distributed Among Them, According To The...

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

  • The Public Laws Of The State Of South-Carolina.

    (Title: The Public Laws Of The State Of South-Carolina. A...)

Connections

On October 12, 1784, Grimké married Mary Smith of Charleston. They had fourteen children.

Father:

John Paul Grimké

Mother:

Mary Faucheraud Grimké

Spouse:

Mary Smith

Daughter:

Sarah Moore Grimké

She was an American abolitionist, writer, and member of the women's suffrage movement.

Daughter:

Angelina Emily Grimké

She was an American political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement.

Son:

Thomas Smith Grimké

He was an American attorney, author, orator and social activist.

References

• Biographical sketches of the bench and bar of South Carolina. Volume 2 of 2
• Lift Up Thy Voice: The Sarah and Angelina Grimké Family’s Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders
• The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition