Richard Cassius Lee Moncure was born on December 11, 1805, at "Clermont, " his family's ancestral Potomac River plantation, Stafford County, Virginia. He was the seventh of nine children of John and Alice Peachy (Gaskins) Moncure. He was descended from the Rev. John Moncure, born in Scotland, who emigrated to Virginia about 1734.
Although of a distinguished family, Moncure was not born to wealth and apparently received little formal schooling, but at the age of twenty, he was admitted to the bar.
In 1826, Moncure became commonwealth's attorney for Stafford County, a post he long occupied. Although he served in the House of Delegates of 1827-28, he was not attracted by politics, but in the years 1847-49, when the statute law of Virginia was revised, he again represented his native county in the legislature and, as a member of the committee charged with the task of revision, played a prominent part in the promulgation of the code of 1849. The next year, as a delegate to the state constitutional convention, he materially aided in framing the constitution of 1851. Already recognized by the bench and bar as a lawyer of the first rank, Moncure now enjoyed a state-wide reputation and in 1851 the legislature appointed him to the supreme court of appeals. When the new constitution, providing for the popular election of judges, went into effect, he was chosen without opposition to continue on the bench, where he remained until the collapse of the Confederacy. After a brief retirement during the confusing days which followed Appomattox he returned to his judicial duties and became president of the court, but with the establishment of military rule during Reconstruction, he was removed from office. In 1870, with the return of civil government under a new constitution, the legislature restored him to the bench and he again became president of Virginia's highest court.
The opinions handed down by Moncure during his long judicial career, contained in twenty-nine volumes of the Virginia Reports from 7 Grattan to 1 Matthews are those of an independent and incorruptible judge who was learned in the law and devoted to his task of administering justice. His best decisions, perhaps, are the ones in which he applied the great principles of equity. Strong and fearless in his faith, with a consciousness of life's task completed, he died at his home "Glencairne" in the county that gave him birth.
Moncure was one of the five judges elected under the new constitution and became president of the court in 1865. His tenure of office was temporarily suspended, however, during the reconstruction period, from 1865 to 1870, but he was again elected in 1870 with the adoption of the new constitution and again became president of the court.
Moncure was a vestryman in the Episcopal Church for forty years, devout yet tolerant, basing his belief squarely on the Bible which he deemed the foundation-stone of the law.
Plain and unadorned in style, without literary or oratorical pretensions, Moncure's opinions generally were clear expositions of the law, although in later years, through his desire to show that no point had been overlooked, they tended to become too detailed and tedious.
Moncure labored diligently in his search for truth and justice. He read neither classical nor current literature and cared little for what is usually called pleasure; his happy domestic life, the law, and the "record" completely absorbed him. He seldom perceived a joke unaided, but was genial and could laugh heartily when it was explained to him. Sublime in his unconscious simplicity, free from the display, and unoppressed by his heritage and attainments, he had an appropriate conception, however, of the dignity of his office. So thoroughly did he inspire public confidence and affection that when forced into retirement during Reconstruction he was frequently chosen as unofficial arbiter of disputes.
On December 29, 1825, Moncure married Mary Butler Washington Conway.
1 November 1772 - 13 August 1822
1774 - 9 May 1860
27 July 1803 - 12 March 1862
1809 - 12 November 1812
1813 - 28 August 1815
24 December 1793 - 3 August 1876
31 January 1796 - 18 June 1820
1807 - 18 January 1892
11 April 1807 - 9 April 1895
16 January 1839 - 26 February 1897
21 August 1835 - 18 July 1919
3 November 1840 - 20 October 1862
11 June 1844 - January 1919
1828 - 1831
26 May 1846 - 1 May 1928
1833 - 1837
3 December 1851 - 22 October 1934
24 February 1837 - 5 January 1902
5 January 1827 - 14 December 1915
24 November 1831 - 4 August 1917
19 March 1849 - 12 December 1921
3 August 1842 - 1 January 1916
