Background

Philemon Bliss was born on July 28, 1814, in Canton, Connecticut, United States, of early Puritan stock through both parents, Asahel and Lydia (Griswold) Bliss. The family moved to Whitestown, New York, in 1821.

Education

Philemon attended the academy in Whitestown, New York, and Oneida Institute, but lack of funds compelled him to withdraw from Hamilton College in his sophomore year, and ill health cut short his training in a local law office.

Career

Philemon Bliss began the active practise of law at Elyria, Ohio, in 1841. His public career began in 1849 with his election by the Ohio legislature as judge of the 14th judicial district where he served until 1852. Of Federalist and Whig antecedents, he had campaigned actively for Clay in 1844, but his pronounced antislavery views carried him into the Free-Soil party in 1848 and later into the Republican. In 1854 he was elected to Congress from a formerly Democratic district and was re-elected in 1856. His dislike of controversy and his weak voice - he struggled all his life against bronchial and pulmonaryweakness - unfitted him for debate, but his set speeches are able statements of the advanced antislavery, anti-state-sovereignty views. In 1861 he accepted an appointment as chief justice of Dakota Territory, hoping that the drier climate would relieve his throat trouble. Two years later he resigned, and coming to Missouri with improved health, in 1864, he brought his family to St. Joseph. Here he served as probate judge and as a member of the county court of Buchanan County; in 1867 he was appointed a curator of the state university, serving until 1872 and taking an active part in its reorganization.

In 1868 Bliss was elected to the state supreme court for a four-year term on the Radical or Republican ticket, and won the respect and confidence of all parties in a time of great political bitterness. The dominance of the Democratic party after 1872 ended his political career. In that year the curators of the university appointed him first dean of the newly created department of law, which position he held until his death in 1889. He died at St. Paul, Minnesota, whither he had gone for his health, and he was buried at Columbia, Missouri.

In spite of his lifelong struggle against physical weakness and his retiring disposition, Bliss gave a great and well recognized service in the training of the post-bellum generation of lawyers, and in the restoration and advancement of the standards of the legal profession in Missouri. His sound legal knowledge is evidenced by his Treatise upon the Law of Pleading under the Codes of Civil Procedure (1870), a text nationally used and frequently revised until superseded by the modern case method.

Achievements

• Philemon Bliss has been listed as a reputable congressman, jurist by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Of sovereignty.

    ( The Making of the Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-192...)

  • A treatise upon the law of pleading under the codes of civil procedure of the states of New York, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa. Oregon, Colorado, North Carolina … 1879

    (Originally published in 1879. This volume from the Cornel...)

Politics

While a man of decided convictions and unquestioned intellectual courage Bliss was a lifelong Republican in a state and community intensely Democratic. He was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 14th congressional district from 1855 to 1859.

Personality

Bliss had an essentially judicial and peaceful temperament.

Connections

In 1843, Philemon Bliss married Martha W. Sharp.

Father:

Asahel Bliss

Mother:

Lydia (Griswold) Bliss

Spouse:

Martha W. (Sharp) Bliss

Brother:

Albert Asahel Bliss

Brother:

Horace Griswold Bliss

Sister:

Hannah Adams (Bliss) Brown

Son:

William Henry Bliss

Son:

Edwin Ward Bliss