Background
Thomas Ruffin was born on November 16, 1787, at Newington, King and Queen County, Virginia, United States. He was the eldest child of Sterling and Alice Roane Ruffin.
Princeton, NJ 08544, United States
Ruffin graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1805.
judge jurist politician statesman
Thomas Ruffin was born on November 16, 1787, at Newington, King and Queen County, Virginia, United States. He was the eldest child of Sterling and Alice Roane Ruffin.
Thomas Ruffin attended the Classical Academy in Warrenton, North Carolina, graduated with honors from Princeton University in 1805.
Admitted to the bar in 1808, Thomas Ruffin settled in Hillsboro. He rose rapidly at the bar, and in 1813, 1815, and 1816, he represented the borough of Hillsboro in the House of Commons, serving as speaker in 1816. He never held a purely political office again, although he was a Crawford candidate for elector in 1824. At the close of his legislative term, he was elected superior court judge, but resigned two years later and returned to practice in order to make good a secured debt. He habitually attended two courts a week for forty-three weeks in the year - a herculean task in the day of bad roads; was a reporter of the supreme court for a short time (1820 -1821); and by 1825 was at the head of the profession in the state.
In that year he returned to the bench, but in 1828 he again resigned, this time to become president of the state bank, which had become heavily involved. A year later the bank was safe, and he was elected associate justice of the supreme court, becoming chief justice in 1833. He resigned in 1852 and retired to his farm in Alamance County, where he had made his home for many years.
In 1858, by the almost unanimous election of the legislature, he was called back to the supreme court but served for only one year. In 1866 he opposed, on constitutional grounds, the right of the "Johnson" convention to submit a new constitution and was largely responsible for its rejection. Bitterly opposed to congressional reconstruction, he was no less opposed to the use of violence to undo it, and the Ku Klux movement excited in his mind the only horror. His last years were spent in Hillsboro where he died.
Ruffin was also an agriculturist of some note, operating profitably two plantations many miles apart. Like his kinsman, Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, he believed in scientific agriculture and kept abreast of every new development. He rose to eminence by unremitting labor rather than by brilliance of mind.
Actively interested in the University of North Carolina, he was a trustee from 1813 to 1831 and again from 1842 to 1868, when reconstruction terminated the old board's existence.
Thomas was deeply religious, a devoted member of the Episcopal Church, and several times a delegate to its General Convention.
Ruffin represented North Carolina at the peace conference in 1861, as an ardent supporter of the Union, and sought in every way to secure the adoption of a compromise that would preserve it. He returned to North Carolina still denying any constitutional right of secession, but eager for a revolutionary separation from the North. Without being a candidate, he was elected to the secession convention, where he voted for the Badger ordinance of revolution; offered a compromise between that and outright secession; and, both failing voted for the ordinance of secession, and thereafter spared no effort in support of the war.
Ruffin's opinions, 1460 in number, embrace almost every topic of civil and criminal law. They are noted for their breadth of view, the fullness of discussion, the force of reasoning, strength, and simplicity of language, lack of citation of authority, and the almost inevitable character of their conclusions. Though respecting precedent, he was not hampered by it in administering justice. He was responsible for two important departures in equity from English precedents: one, the rejection of the doctrine of part performance as a basis for decreeing the specific execution of a verbal contract for the sale of land; the other, the discarding of the doctrine of vendor's lien upon land sold upon credit.
In Hoke vs. Henderson the first case of its kind in the United States, he held, contrary to the doctrine later adopted by the federal courts and those of every other state, that the holder of an office had an estate in it of which he could not be divested except by the abolition of the office. This remained the rule in North Carolina until 1903. In Raleigh and Gaston R. R. Co. vs. Davis, he laid down the doctrine, then new, that the legislature had the power to provide for condemnation of a right of way for railroad purposes without the owner's being entitled to a jury trial for assessment of the damage. His opinion in "State vs. Mann" illustrates his relentless logic as applied to slavery. As an executive officer of the court, he greatly improved its procedure.
For six years (1854-1860) the active president of the state agricultural society, Thomas exerted a powerful influence in extending agricultural knowledge.
In appearance and manner, Thomas was austere and seemingly cold, but in reality, he was a fiery nature in severe restraint. Of dominating will, he was inclined to be dictatorial, and he disliked opposition. His whole outlook on life was serious, but he had a genial human side, as the number of his devoted friends gave evidence.
On December 9, 1809, Ruffin married Anne, the daughter of William Kirkland. Thirteen of his fourteen children survived him.