Background
Waller Staples was born on February 24, 1826 at Stuart, Patrick County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Colonel Abram Penn and Mary Penn Staples.
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
At sixteen Waller entered the University of North Carolina, and after two years there transferred to the College of William and Mary.
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
At sixteen Waller entered the University of North Carolina, and after two years there transferred to the College of William and Mary.
congressman jurist lawyer politician
Waller Staples was born on February 24, 1826 at Stuart, Patrick County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of Colonel Abram Penn and Mary Penn Staples.
At sixteen Waller entered the University of North Carolina, and after two years there transferred to the College of William and Mary, where he was graduated with honors in 1846. He studied law under Judge Norbonne Taliaferro in Franklin County.
In 1848 Waller Staples began practice in Montgomery County, Virginia, as the junior associate of his kinsman, William Ballard Preston. Preston's appointment within a few months to the post of secretary of the navy under President Taylor was of great professional advantage to the younger man.
In 1854-1855, Staples represented Montgomery County in the Virginia House of Delegates as a Whig. In the latter year, he ran for the United States House of Representatives in the 12th district as a Know-Nothing but lost to the Democratic incumbent, Henry A. Edmundson.
In the crisis of 1860-1861 Staples opposed immediate secession and worked with the conservatives to avert the disruption of the Union, but when Virginia adopted the ordinance of secession he volunteered for service in the state forces.
He served in Confederate Congress at Montgomery, Alabama until the end of its existence in February 1862, and then, having been elected by a large majority, took his seat in the House of Representatives of the new Confederate Congress.
He was reelected in 1863 and served until the end of the war. After the war he resumed his practice in Montgomery County, regained his place as a leader at the bar, and in 1871 was elected a justice of the Virginia supreme court of appeals. His most notable opinion as a member of this court was his dissent in the "Coupon Case" in 1878, which led to the forming of the Readjuster party and to the partial repudiation of a portion of the state debt.
Staples, dissenting, held that the Virginia law of 1871 making coupons of bonds issued in that year receivable for all state taxes was invalid as applied to school taxes for which a special fund had been set aside by the state constitution. After the Readjuster period his opinion on this point was upheld by the supreme court of Virginia and by the United States Supreme Court.
He sat on the supreme bench for a full term of twelve years, but when the Readjuster party secured a majority in the legislature he and his associates were not reelected.
Staples served as a member of Washington and Lee University School of Law's faculty from 1877 to 1878.
Staples served on the board of visitors of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in Blacksburg from 1886 to 1888 and was rector from 1886 to 1887. He was appointed to the board by Government.
For two years Staples was counsel for the Richmond & Danville Railroad Company, resigning this position to devote himself to a lucrative practice as a senior member of the Richmond law firm of Staples & Munford. During this same period he was president of the Virginia Bar Association. As an attorney in two significant cases before the Virginia supreme court of appeals, he won reversals of former decisions of the supreme court.
Waller Redd Staples distinguished himself as a representative from Virginia in the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama during the Civil War and represented Virginia in the first and second Confederate Congress. Following the Civil War he successfully served as a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court from 1870 to 1882.
Staples became a Whig in politics and served as a delegate from Montgomery County in the House of Delegates, 1853-1854.
During his judicial service he was offered at different times the Democratic nominations for governor, attorney-general, and United States senator, but he declined the political office, though he canvassed the state for the nominees and was twice a Democratic presidential elector.
Above medium height, of strong, athletic build, with a persuasive voice, Staples was a polished orator but also enjoyed a "knockdown and drag out" legal fight.
Waller was never married.
