Horace Binney was an American lawyer and politician. He was director of the United States Bank.
Background
Horace Binney was born on January 4, 1780, in the Northern Liberties, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Dr. Barnabas and Mary (Woodrow) Binney. He was descended from Capt. John Binney, who came to Hull, Massachussets, about 1678.
Education
Horace obtained his early education at the Friends Almshouse School and the Grammar School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1788 he went to a classical school at Bordentown, New Jersey, but his father had died in 1787 and on his mother's subsequent marriage to Dr. Marshall Spring, the family removed to Watertown, Massachussets. Binney entered Harvard College in July 1793, graduating in 1797 with high honors. At first he meditated taking up medicine but his stepfather dissuaded him, and going to Philadelphia, he endeavored to enter a mercantile office, but found no vacancy. He thereupon studied law in the office of Jared Ingersoll.
Career
Binney was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in March 1800, and started practise in that city, but for the first five years made little progress. Politics had no attraction for him, but he was persuaded in 1806 to be a candidate for the legislature on a fusion ticket of Federalists and Independent Democrats, and headed the poll. His record in the legislature was undistinguished, but he was brought into contact with influential underwriters and merchants, and his legal ability was speedily recognized. At this period marine-insurance litigation was particularly heavy in Philadelphia, the maritime measures adopted by Great Britain and France against each other's trade during the Napoleonic War seriously affecting United States commerce, and continually raising new points in insurance law.
The first important retainer Binney received was in Gibson vs. Philadelphia Insurance Company in 1808, involving the correct mode of adjusting a particular average under a clause in a respondentia bond, and the ability he displayed was such that he soon had all the business he could attend to. In 1809 appeared the first volume of his Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, undertaken at the suggestion of Chief Justice Tilghman. Ultimately extending to six volumes, covering all important cases down to September 1814, these reports have always been considered very valuable, their accuracy never having been challenged.
Binney had in January 1808 been elected a director of the first United States Bank, and his first case in the Supreme Court of the United States - which he won - was United States Bank vs. De Veaux, respecting the right of a corporation composed of citizens of one state to sue a citizen of another state in the federal courts. In 1810 he was elected to the common council of Philadelphia, and reelected in 1811, being appointed president of that body each term. Binney was now recognized as one of the leaders of the Philadelphia bar, and his reputation extended beyond the limits of his state. In 1823 he argued the case of Lyle vs. Richards, one of the two great cases upon which his reputation as a lawyer rests. In 1827 the bar of Philadelphia almost unanimously recommended his appointment to the chief justiceship of Pennsylvania, and in 1829 President Jackson was urged to appoint him to the Supreme Court of the United States. Both movements were unsuccessful, but he had not been consulted on either occasion, and he had no inclination to take a seat on the bench, as was evidenced by his declining in 1830 an offer from Gov. Wolf of a position on the supreme court of Pennsylvania.
But powerful influences were brought to bear which induced him to become a candidate for Congress on the anti-Jackson ticket in 1832. He consented on the understanding that he would not be required to support a protective tariff, that a vote for him should only be considered a vote against Jackson, and that if elected he should not be bound to any party. After a stirring campaign he was elected and took his seat in Congress December 2, 1833. In the House he was an outstanding figure, but he could effect nothing in the face of the majority which the President commanded. His bitter disappointment was expressed in the statement that "the spirit of party is a more deadly foe to free institutions than the spirit of despotism. " As a debater he showed himself second to none in the House, and his speeches reached an unusually high level, but he disliked his environment, and declined a renomination.
In May 1836 he undertook a European tour with his daughter and niece, visiting Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy, being away over a year. On his return in 1837 he definitely retired from court work, confining himself to giving opinions, particularly with regard to land titles, in reference to which he was, and still is, regarded as almost infallible. He was vehemently opposed to the amendment proposed in the Pennsylvania consitutional convention of 1837-1838 making the tenure of judges for a term of years only instead of during good behavior, and he published an eloquent address to the people appealing to them to vote against it, but in vain.
In 1844 Binney emerged from his semi-retirement and appeared in the Supreme Court of the United States at the imperative call of the City of Philadelphia in connection with the case of Vidal et al. vs. Philadelphia et al. , involving the validity of a bequest by Stephen Girard of large properties to the city upon trust to establish a college for poor white male orphans. Relatives of the deceased claimed, inter alia, that the City could not hold a trust and that the objects were too vague. The question was of momentous importance to the City inasmuch as it had large commitments, having sold part of the property and undertaken the erection of expensive buildings in connection with the gift. Binney's argument, remarkable for its erudition and power, was perhaps the most brilliant that has ever been addressed to the Supreme Court, and carried the day. This was his last appearance in court and undeniably his greatest triumph.
In 1850 Binney began to experience trouble with his eyes, and decided to withdraw completely from practise. He now turned to his pen. His first publication was The Alienigenæ of the U. S. under the Present Naturalization Laws (1853), addressed to the question of citizenship of children born outside the United States. This was followed by an obituary, Horace Binney Wallace (1853); Bushrod Washington (1858). The outbreak of the Civil War found him ranged with the administration, though he did not approve all its acts. It however gave occasion for the first of his series of "Habeas Corpus Pamphlets, " The Privileges of the Writ of Habeas Corpus under the Constitution (1862), wherein he upheld the legality of the President's action in suspending the writ. Two subsequent pamphlets elaborate his argument, and the three together compose a very valuable constitutional treatise. He died at Philadelphia August 12, 1875.