Gilchrist Robert was a lawyer, attorney-general of New Jersey. He had an extremely lucrative law practice.
Background
Robert Gilchrist was the son of Robert and Frances (Vacher) Gilchrist. He was born on August 21, 1825, in Jersey City, New Jersey, to which place his father emigrated from the north of Ireland early in the nineteenth century, and where in 1840, he was elected first clerk of Hudson County.
Education
Robert obtained his early education at Russell’s private school in Jersey City and at Crane’s Academy in Caldwell, New Jersey. His classical studies, he informs us, consisted of “a little Latin and no Greek. ”
He read law in the office of Isaac W. Scudder, with whom he became a partner upon his admission to the bar in 1847.
Career
At the first call for troops in 1861, Gilchrist entered the service as a captain in the 2nd New Jersey Volunteers, remaining in the army until 1865.
In 1866, Gilchrist ran for Congress in the 5th district; he was defeated, however, by the Republican candidate, George A. Halsey. In 1869, he was appointed attorney-general of New Jersey by Gov. Randolph to fill the unexpired term of George M. Robeson, who had become a member of Grant’s cabinet.
He was reappointed for a full term in 1873 by Gov. Parker, but resigned in 1875 and unsuccessfully sought the nomination of Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.
He declined an appointment as justice of the supreme court of the state and also the office of chief justice. He had an extremely lucrative law practise. Gilchrist is remembered principally as an authority on constitutional law.
Achievements
Politics
Originally a Whig, Gilchrist joined the Republican party in 1860, but at the close of the Civil War he disagreed so strongly with the Republicans in their policy of reconstruction that he went over to the Democratic party.
Views
Quotations:
“The Thirteenth Amendment made all the colored people who were before in slavery free. If a free colored native was not a citizen before, the text of the Fourteenth Amendment makes him so. As a practical, present question of the hour, the right of the colored man to vote, if he is otherwise qualified, should be treated as settled in his favor. ”
Membership
In 1859, Gilchrist was elected a member of the New Jersey Assembly.
Connections
Gilchrist married Fredericka Beardsley of Oswego, New York, daughter of Samuel R. Beardsley, an adjutant-general on the staff of Gen. Meade. She is known as the author of The True Story of Hamlet and Ophelia (1889).