William Scott

Background

William was born on June 7, 1804 at Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia, United States, of a family resident in the state and province since early colonial days.

Education

After his graduation from Fauquier Academy, William Scott studied law with a local attorney.

Career

Scott was admitted to the bar in 1825. The next year he removed to Missouri and settled at the then flourishing town of Old Franklin. The choice was not a wise one, for there were many leading lawyers in the locality.

His industry and knowledge of the law, however, won the respect of the profession and led to his appointment in 1835 as judge of the ninth circuit. Living at Union, he traveled on circuit through the large district. As a judge he won immediate recognition. He decided cases soon after hearing the arguments, since there was no opportunity in the pioneer community to examine carefully reports and opinions difficult of access, and he frequently deferred to local conditions and discarded common law doctrines to meet the immediate situation.

In August 1841 he was appointed to the supreme bench, an action that was widely endorsed by Democrats and by Whigs alike. He served eighteen years. His legal ability did not equal that of his colleagues, Hamilton Rowan Gamble and William Barclay Napton, but he was more sucessful. In case a Man of Color vs. Emerson he overruled eight Missouri precedents in holding that the laws of other states and territories had no extra-territorial effect in Missouri except as Missouri recognized them, and that a slave who is taken by his master into territory where slavery is prohibited could not, after returning with his master to Missouri, maintain a suit for freedom.

On two occasions, in 1855 and in 1861, he received a significant legislative vote for United States senator. In 1849 Gov. Austin Augustus King, a Benton Democrat, did not reappoint Scott, but two years later, when the judiciary became elective, he was chosen for a term of six years; in 1857 he was reelected.

When he refused to subscribe to the oath of loyalty promulgated by the state convention, his office was declared vacant. After his appointment to the supreme court in 1841 he moved to a farm near Jefferson City, where he lived until his death in 1862.

Achievements

• William Scott has been listed as a reputable jurist by Marquis Who's Who.

Politics

Scott was an ardent Democrat and during the middle forties became active in the group of radical, pro-slavery opponents of Thomas Hart Benton. He approved the disunionist Jackson Resolutions of 1849 and supported the anti-Benton faction during the bitter party warfare of the fifties. Although not an active disunionist, he strongly endorsed the southern attitude in 1860-61 and was in sympathy with the pro-confederate state administration.

Personality

Initially, Scott was hot-tempered and excitable. Later his frontier judicial pragmatism suited admirably both lawyers and litigants; he was highly regarded for his sense of justice and kind heart. He was industrious, just, and competent.

He was large and awkward, weighing two hundred and fifty pounds, an ineffective speaker who rarely attempted a public address.

His opinions, necessarily dealing with a great variety of subjects, were marked by brevity and by conservatism.

Connections

In 1835 Scott married Elizabeth Dixon, of Jefferson City, by whom he had six children.

Spouse:

Elizabeth Dixon

colleague:

Hamilton Rowan Gamble

colleague:

William Barclay Napton

References

• The History of the bench and bar of Missouri; with reminiscences of the prominent lawyers of the past, and a record of the law's leaders of the present
• Reminiscences Of The Early Bench And Bar Of Illinois (1879)