Background

He was born on November 25, 1834 in Birmingham, England, United Kingdom, son of John and Sarah Shearman.

At the age of nine he was brought to New York by his father, his mother arriving later. His father, who was by turns a physician, writer, and preacher, soon became an invalid, and young Shearman at the age of twelve was obliged to shift for himself.

Education

His formal education ceased at thirteen. Later he began studying law with Austin and Benjamin Vaughan Abbott.

Career

At fourteen he was a messenger boy, earning a dollar weekly and buying books with his savings; and at twenty-four he was an expert bookkeeper in a dry-goods store. Almost immediately afterward he determined to become a lawyer and began studying in the office of Austin and Benjamin Vaughan Abbott. Within six months he passed his examinations and was admitted to the bar.

He began writing on procedure, and in 1861 he published, with John L. Tillinghast, the first volume of Practice, Pleadings, and Forms in Civil Actions in the Courts of Record in the State of New York. A second volume (1865), written wholly by Shearman, completed a reference work widely used until the law was changed in 1877.

In 1860 he was employed by David Dudley Field of the New York code commission to prepare a book of forms, which he completed the following year. He then assisted with the proposed civil code (which was not adopted), preparing the part relating to obligations.

With Amasa R. Redfield he wrote A Treatise on the Law of Negligence (1869). It reached its sixth edition in 1913. In 1868 Shearman, with little practical experience but with a great store of legal learning, became a partner of Field and the immediate legal adviser of the officers and directors of the Erie Railroad, then under the control of James Fisk, Jr. , and Jay Gould.

In the violent legal struggles of the "Erie war" the unusual methods of the partners, particularly the invention of injunctions by telegraph and the revival of writs of assistance, provoked much adverse criticism. In 1873, as a result of friction with Field's son, Shearman withdrew from Field & Shearman and with John W. Sterling established a new firm which specialized in corporate reorganizations and the management of large estates. Beginning in 1874 he gave most of his attention for nearly two years to defending his pastor, Henry Ward Beecher, in civil and ecclesiastical proceedings resulting from the famous suit brought by Theodore Tilton. He successfully defended Jay Gould in every one of nearly a hundred damage suits growing out of the Black Friday gold panic of 1869.

His firm was counsel for the National City Bank, for James J. Hill , for the builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and for several important railroad and industrial companies. . In 1881 he became converted to the fiscal measures of Henry George and in 1887 suggested to him the name "single tax".

In numerous pamphlets and in his Natural Taxation (1895) he presented statistics to prove inductively the conclusions that George had arrived at by deduction. His Natural Taxation went through five editions.

He dead in Brooklyn.

Achievements

• Thomas Gaskell Shearman was famous as the author of A Treatise on the Law of Negligence (1869), a pioneer work which was frequently cited in judicial opinions and greatly influenced the law of the United States. Besides, he heavily contributed to single tax theory, his another extremeny popular work Natural Taxation contains one of the strongest indictments of the general property tax ever written. Shearman appeared on the platform more than seven hundred times in behalf of the Indian, the Armenian, the negro, and of the poor in coal fields, factories, sweat shops, and city tenements. He frequently gave his legal services without compensation to poor clients.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Speech of Thomas G. Shearman, at Des Moines, Iowa, October 2, 1883. Free Trade: The Road to Temperance and Prosperity for All Classes

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A Treatise on the Law of Negligence

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Causes of Trusts

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Natural Taxation; An Inquiry Into the Practicability, Justice and Effects of a Scientific Method of Taxation

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Views

Shearman estimated that half the proceeds of ground rent would pay all the expenses of government; and he was opposed to having more collected because of his fear of governmental extravagance. His particular theory, which proposed the collection of ground rents for purely fiscal rather than social purposes, became known as the "single tax limited. "

Personality

Most of his large earnings were used in dispensing charity. For all his humanitarian endeavors, however, he was never popular. His lack of tact and his habit of speaking in paradoxes alienated many who might have been his friends.

Connections

He married Ella Partridge of Brooklyn in 1859.

Father:

John Shearman

Mother:

Sarah Shearman

Spouse:

Ella Partridge

employer:

David Dudley Field

Partner:

John W. Sterling

employer and teacher:

Benjamin Vaughan Abbott

coworker:

Amasa R. Redfield

coworker:

John L. Tillinghast