WAR POWERS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
(This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)
This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for kindle devices. We have endeavoured to create this version as close to the original artefact as possible. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we believe they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
The War Powers of the President: And the Legislative Powers of Congress in Relation to Rebellion, Treason and Slavery
(This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)
This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for kindle devices. We have endeavoured to create this version as close to the original artefact as possible. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we believe they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
William Whiting was an American lawyer and public official.
Background
William Whiting was born on March 3, 1813 in Concord, Massachussets, to Col. William and Hannah (Conant) Whiting, the only son and eldest of their three children. He was a descendant of Samuel Whiting, a non-conformist minister and immigrant to Lynn, Massachussets, from Lincolnshire (1636), whose wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Sir Oliver St. John and sister of Chief Justice Oliver St. John of the Common Pleas.
Education
Prepared for college at Concord Academy, William Whiting was graduated at Harvard with the degree of A. B. in 1833, and received a law degree there in 1838. Colby University gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1872.
Career
In October 1838 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. As a lawyer, he proved to be so thorough, industrious, and adroit in analysis of mastered cases that the old Common Pleas was often termed "Whiting's court. " His chief eminence was in patent cases, which he studied so deeply on the mechanical side that he was often able to suggest improvements in inventions to his clients. A Unitarian and a reformer like his Abolitionist father, he was a man of large public interests with a bent for writing legal treatises. His Speech before a Committee of the Legislature of Massachusetts on the Destruction of Boston Harbor was published in 1851, as was a similar speech, Application of John C. Tucker and Others for a Charter of the Mystic River Railroad (1851). His printed argument in Ross Winans vs. Orsamus Eaton et al. , a patent case, before the United States circuit court for the northern district of New York, 1853, attracted considerable attention. A member of several historical and antiquarian societies and president of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society (1853 - 58), he compiled Sermons, by Rev. Joseph Harrington . .. with a Memoir (1854) and a Memoir of Rev. Samuel Whiting, D. D. and of His Wife, Elizabeth St. John (1873). Appointed special counselor of the War Department, November 1862, and later its solicitor, an office established in February 1863 by a law which was repealed in 1866, he resigned in April 1865, and no successor was named. In 1862 he compiled a brochure, The War Powers of the President and the Legislative Powers of Congress in Relation to Rebellion, Treason, and Slavery, which under the modified title, War Powers under the Constitution of the United States (1864), went through forty-three editions in eight years. Equally useful were his pamphlets, Military Arrests in Time of War (1863), which was the bible of federal law-enforcement officers, The Return of the Rebellious States to the Union (1864), a letter to the Union League of Philadelphia, and Military Government of Hostile Territory in Time of War (1864), originally written as an answer to a letter of J. M. Ashley, member of Congress from Ohio, to Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war. His annotated Opinions on "Slavery" and "Reconstruction of the Union" as Expressed by President Lincoln was used as a campaign text in the national election of 1864. As assistant to the attorney-general, he published his opinion on Certain Matters between the United States and the Telegraph Companies upon the Construction of the Act Approved July 4, 1866 (1872). A presidential elector in 1868, he was an ardent partisan of Grant. In 1872 he was elected to Congress from the 3rd district of Massachusetts by an overwhelming vote, but his death, at Roxbury, intervened to prevent his taking the seat for which he was so well qualified. Interment was at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord.
(This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)
Politics
A sturdy nationalist, he held that the Constitution of the United States gave the federal government total belligerent rights against the rebellious states.
Connections
On October 28, 1840, he married Lydia Cushing Russell of Plymouth. He had four children - Rose Standish, William St. John, who died in infancy, William Russell, and Harold.