Background
Ulysses Mercur was the son of Henry and Mary (Watts) Mercur. He was of Austrian ancestry. His father, who was educated abroad, returned to America and settled in 1809 at Towanda, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where Ulysses was born.
Ulysses Mercur was the son of Henry and Mary (Watts) Mercur. He was of Austrian ancestry. His father, who was educated abroad, returned to America and settled in 1809 at Towanda, Bradford County, Pennsylvania, where Ulysses was born.
Mercur's early life was spent on a farm and in the common schools of the vicinity. When sixteen years old he became a clerk in his brother's country store. His father intended to establish him as a farmer, but because of the boy's desire to go to college, he sold his farm in order to finance his son's schooling. Ulysses entered Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and graduated in 1842.
Mercur read law with Judge William McKennan and in 1843 began his career as a lawyer at Towanda. In 1856 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In 1860 he went so far as to serve as a presidential elector on the Lincoln and Hamlin ticket. He was associated with the group which was led by Galusha A. Grow and David Wilmot, and upon the election of Wilmot to the Senate in 1860 was appointed to fill his place as presiding judge of the thirteenth judicial district of Pennsylvania. At the election for the next full term as judge, he was chosen without opposition, and he served in this position till March 4, 1865. Mercur was elected to Congress in 1864 and served continuously as a member of the lower house from March 4, 1865, to December 2, 1872. In Congress, he was particularly active as an advocate of the extreme measures in dealing with the Southern States, and as an opponent of luxury taxes, especially the taxes on tea and coffee. In connection with Reconstruction, he once said that if the Southern states "will not respect the stars they must feel the stripes of our glorious flag". He resigned as a member of Congress to become an associate justice of the supreme court of Pennsylvania. He held this position from 1872 till 1883, and from 1883 till his death in 1887 he was chief justice of the court. He died at Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and was buried at Towanda.
Mercur was a member of the Republican Party. He favored free-soil doctrines and opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Just as the distinctive policy of his group in Congress in connection with Reconstruction was reversed and discredited, so his conception of the judiciary was soon regarded as antiquated. As a judge, he was described by an associate as "conservative and cautious, looking to the old landmarks". By the end of his career, the old landmarks were rapidly being destroyed by the necessity of adjusting government and law to conditions alien to his generation.
a member of the U. S. House of Representatives
On January 12, 1850, Mercur married Sarah Simpson Davis.