Background
John Meredith Read was born on July 21, 1797 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the grandson of George Read of Delaware, and son of John and Martha (Meredith) Read.
John Meredith Read was born on July 21, 1797 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the grandson of George Read of Delaware, and son of John and Martha (Meredith) Read.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1812.
He was admitted to the bar on September 7, 1818, served as city-solicitor (1830 - 31) and member of the select-council (1827 - 28) of Philadelphia, and represented the city in the state legislature (1823 - 25). Endowed with talents of a high order and with exceptional family connections, punctual and methodical, and indefatigable in labor, he attained before he was forty a place high among the leaders of the city bar, when that bar was in its golden age.
After serving as United States district attorney for eastern Pennsylvania from 1837 to 1841, he was nominated by President Tyler an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, but his opinions on slavery prevented confirmation by the Senate. As a result, at least partly, of the recommendations of James Buchanan, he was next appointed attorney-general of Pennsylvania, but occupied the position only a few months.
Private practice claimed him thereafter until his election in October 1858 for fifteen years to the supreme court of the state, of which he became chief justice by seniority on December 2, 1872. His failing health increased the labors of his colleagues at the end of his term, and for this reason he retired upon its expiration. His judicial opinions were mines of information when they involved historical research; otherwise they were habitually terse and vigorous, characterized perhaps more by a strong sense of justice than by power of legal reasoning.
He was known to call bedroom consultations in earliest morning hours and even to open court in mid-winter before daylight. According to a friendly and very competent contemporary, he was a faithful adherent to precedents and defender of vested rights, even to the point of undoing some innovations of his predecessors. To Philadelphia Read gave on many occasions unstinted service. Ardent in friendships, zealous in advocacy of causes he espoused, a speaker of earnestness and power, he wielded an influence which counted heavily in the state. Despite early anti-slavery tendencies he approved the annexation of Texas and the Mexican War, but he opposed in the state convention of 1849 any extension of slave territory, joined in the creation of the Free-Soil party, and was an early adherent of the Republican party. His Speech on the Power of Congress over the Territories, and in Favor of Free Kansas, Free White Labor, and of Fremont and Dayton, Delivered.
September 30, 1856, at Philadelphia (1856) was widely used in the national campaign. The first Republican victory in Pennsylvania sent him to the state supreme court. Pennsylvania was indispensable to Republican success in 1860, and Read received mention in the state convention as a presidential candidate, but Simon Cameron's ambitions stood in the way. Rhode Island gave him one vote in the first ballot of the convention. During the war he was one of the bare majority of his court who steadily sustained the legislation of Congress; and several of his opinions, separately printed, received wide circulation.
His Views, sustained by Facts and Authorities, on the Suspension of the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, published in January 1863, probably had some influence upon the passage by Congress of the Act of March 3, 1863.
The standards he set for himself as a lawyer and a citizen were exceedingly high, and he observed them. His judicial opinions are in volumes 32 to 73 of the Pennsylvania State Reports. His other publications included, aside from unofficial prints of judicial opinions, various pamphlets. His most important reprinted opinions supported the constitutionality of the national draft act of March 3, 1863 and of the legal tender act, and the operation of street cars on Sunday, as "the poor man's carriage" and therefore within the state constitutional exception of necessity and charity.
Read was a man of dignity, kindness, courtesy, remarkable energy, and strong opinions, and very persistent in his purposes.
He was married on March 20, 1828, to Priscilla Marshall of Boston, by whom he had five children. She died in 1841 and on July 26, 1855, he married Amelia Thompson of Philadelphia, the daughter of Edward Thompson and widow of Theodore Thompson. She, with a son by his first wife, John Meredith Read, survived him.
