Matthew Hall McAllister was an American attorney, politician, and judge.
Background
Matthew Hall McAllister was born on October 26, 1800 at Savannah, Georgia. He was the great-grandson of Archibald McAlister, who emigrated from Scotland before 1730, acquired a large tract of land in the Cumberland Valley, owned a gristmill and a smith shop, and was one of the organizers of the First Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, Pa. His father, Matthew McAllister, a graduate of the College of New Jersey in the class of 1779, was a lawyer of some eminence whom Washington appointed district attorney for the southern district of Georgia. His mother was Hannah (Gibbons) McAllister, a sister of William Gibbons of Georgia.
Education
In June 1817 the son entered his father's college, where he did not distinguish himself academically and left college in October 1818.
Career
McAllister was admitted to the bar about 1820. For twenty-nine years thereafter he practised his profession in Savannah with great success. In 1827 he was appointed United States district attorney for the southern district of Georgia. His first noteworthy activity in politics came in 1832, when he appeared as an outstanding defender of the Union under the constitution and the opponent of nullification. From 1834 to 1837, he served in the Georgia Senate, in which he was a prominent and influential member. Until 1840 he seems to have been identified with the National Republicans and, later, with the Whig party; but, after the nomination of Harrison for the presidency, he bolted that party and appealed to other state rights Whigs to join the Democratic party. On July 4 of that year he made an Address to the Democratic-Republican Convention of Georgia (1840) which set forth his principles with a good deal of clarity.
Although a coastal rice planter and a member of the most exclusive social aristocracy in the state, he soon became one of the three or four Democratic leaders in Georgia. In 1845 he ran for governor but was defeated by a close vote. During this campaign, he was denounced by opponents as an "aristocrat who has no sympathy with the people, " and as belonging to "that class in Savannah known as the 'Swelled Heads' who think the up-country people no better than brutes". He was several times elected mayor of Savannah and, in that office, acquired some reputation as a protector of the colored people. In 1848 he was a delegate-at-large to the Democratic National Convention at Baltimore, supported the nomination of Lewis Cass, and campaigned in Tennessee for the Cass ticket. Early in 1850 the state legislature elected him one of the state's two delegates-at-large to the Nashville convention, but he declined the honor. Later that year, he moved with his family to California and practised law with his two sons Hall and Ward in San Francisco. In 1853 he returned to Georgia during a legislative deadlock over the election of a United States senator. There he was nominated for the senatorship by his friends and received 93 out of 111 votes necessary to a choice. In 1855 Pierce appointed him to be the first United States circuit judge in California. The character and variety of his judicial decisions is apparent from the volume of Reports of Cases in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia (1859) reported by his son, Cutler McAllister. Owing to impaired health, he resigned from the bench in 1862. Three years later he died in San Francisco, being survived by his wife, a daughter, and five sons. He was buried from the Episcopal Church of the Advent. His death evoked eulogies from the bench and bar of more than ordinary earnestness and impressiveness.
Achievements
Connections
McAllister was married to Louisa Charlotte Cutler of New York City, granddaughter of Esther (Marion) Mitchell, the sister of Gen. Francis Marion and the aunt of Julia Ward Howe.