Background
He was born on January 14, 1782 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant and Margaret (Spencer).
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He was born on January 14, 1782 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant and Margaret (Spencer).
He graduated second in his class at the College of New Jersey in 1798.
After studies he entered the law office of Jared Ingersoll; and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar on June 8, 1802. Shortly afterwards, Thomas McKean appointed him clerk of the mayor's court, indicating that Thomas Sergeant, like his brother John, was allied with the McKean-Jefferson Republicans.
In 1812 and again in 1813 he was elected to the legislature, but political life attracted him less strongly than the bench, and on October 20, 1814, he accepted a commission as associate judge of the district court of Philadelphia and held this post until 1817. In the latter year he was appointed secretary of the commonwealth by Gov. William Findlay. He did not escape the general investigation that was made of Findlay's administration by the legislature. On December 17, 1818, a dissatisfied office seeker in a petition to the legislature charged Sergeant with nepotism and favoritism in the disposal of minor offices. A committee of inquiry was appointed, but reported that the complaints had not been substantiated and asked that the charges be dropped.
On July 6, 1819, Sergeant resigned as secretary and the same day was appointed attorney general, which office he held until the administration of Gov. Joseph Hiester began in 1820. Subsequently, he devoted himself to his legal practice and scholarly pursuits until April 1825, when he was appointed solicitor of the district for Philadelphia County.
In April 1828 he became postmaster of Philadelphia and served as such throughout Jackson's first administration. His next appointment, February 3, 1834, was that of associate justice of the Pennsylvania supreme court. During the twelve years he occupied this position his decisions, chiefly limited to expounding the equity decisions of the court, were noted for their brevity, clarity, and accuracy.
He was provost of the Law Academy of Philadelphia from 1844 to 1855, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania from 1842 to 1854, president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. As a young lawyer he contributed articles and poems to periodicals and newspapers; he soon, however, confined himself to legal researches and writings.
His first important work was A Treatise upon the Law of Pennsylvania Relative to the Proceeding by Foreign Attachment (1811). There followed at various intervals: Constitutional Law: Being a Collection of Points Arising upon the Constitution and Jurisprudence of the United States, Which Have Been Settled by Judicial Decision and Practice (1822), of which a second edition under a somewhat different title appeared in 1830; Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1814-1829 (17 vols. , 1818 - 29), in collaboration with William Rawle; and View of the Land Laws of Pennsylvania (1838).
He was one of the editors of Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the English Courts of Common Law (1822 - 25) and also of The Law Library (1833 - 60).
He died in 1860.
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Like his brother, he strongly opposed the amendment in the constitutional convention of 1837-38 proposing popular election of judges, and so bitter was his resentment at its inclusion in the state constitution that he resigned his judgeship, October 1, 1846, largely on that account.
He was a member of the American Philosophical Society.
He was married on September 14, 1812, to Sarah Bache, granddaughter of Benjamin Franklin, by whom he had three sons and a daughter.