Thomas Adiel Sherwood

Background

Thomas was born on June 2, 1834 at Eatonton, Putnam County, Georgia, United States, the son of the Rev. Adiel and Emma (Heriot) Sherwood.

Education

After excellent training under the guidance of his scholarly father, he entered Mercer University, transferring later to Shurtleff College, Alton. He was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in 1857.

Career

In 1857 Sherwood was admitted to the bar in Mississippi County, Missouri, and began practice at Neosho, in the southwestern section of the state. The region was virtually a frontier community and he rode the circuit, with few Reports and fewer books to assist him.

During the Civil War her moved to Springfield, which had an able local bar, forming a partnership with his brother-in-law, H. C. Young. He disliked trial work and was at his best as counsel and before appellate courts. By 1870, he was well known throughout the judicial circuits of southwestern Missouri and a leader of its bar.

A Democrat, he was in thorough accord with the party group which came into power in the state during the early seventies. Sectional influence and the support of certain party leaders resulted in his nomination in 1872 for judge of the supreme court. He was reelected in 1882 and in 1892, serving thirty years. His entire official life was spent upon the bench and his political and social philosophy must be gleaned from his judicial opinions.

Supported alike by important politico-legal leaders and by the party rank and file, his reelections were marked by increased majorities. He was ambitious for a fourth term, being mentally alert and physically active.

Following his unwilling retirement from the bench, he practised law in Springfield for a few years, published a polemical work, Commentaries on the Criminal Law of Missouri (1907), and retained great interest in public affairs.

He died in California of the infirmities of age.

Achievements

• Thomas Adiel Sherwood served as a judge of the supreme cour for thirty years, his most significant contributions were in constitutional law, criminal law, and equity. He was an earnest defender of civil liberty and of constitutional guarantees, never hesitating to overrule in terse and vigorous language the civil and criminal verdicts of lower courts. He was also known as the author of Commentaries on the Criminal Law of Missouri, that was marked with hot disputes.

Works

More photos

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  • An Inquiry Into the Constitutional Validity of Divers Acts of the Present Occupant of the Presidential Chair: The Which Is an Appeal to the People of ... and Rescue the Constitution, That Sacred He

    (Excerpt from An Inquiry Into the Constitutional Validity ...)

Politics

He was a conservative Democrat. He was a strict constructionist, opposing subsidies, grants, and all forms of "federal encroachment, " and fearing executive "usurpation" and governmental "interference" in private enterprise. Confronted by problems of constitutional construction, he relied upon a series of fixed and rigid principles. Temperamentally a controversialist and an advocate, he frequently dissented, but had the satisfaction subsequently of having many of his dissenting opinions accepted by the majority. He was a stanch advocate of judicial reform, both administrative and procedural.

Personality

He had aggressive and provocative personality. Officially, he was austere and dignified, utterly impervious to what he considered public clamor, but his intimate friends knew him as a genial companion, with a knowledge and a keen appreciation of history and of literature.

Connections

He married, in June 1861, Mary E. Young, of southwestern Missouri, who, with four children, survived him.

Father:

Adiel Sherwood

Mother:

Emma (Heriot) Sherwood

Spouse:

Mary E. Young

brother-in-law and partner:

H. C. Young