Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas, 1838-1840
Thomas Jefferson Rusk, hero of the Texas Revolution, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and first chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court to perform active service, was born in the Pendleton District of South Carolina on December 5, 1803. Rusk was raised in modest surroundings: his father was an Irish immigrant who worked as a stone mason, and Thomas was the eldest of seven children. The family lived on land owned by John C. Calhoun, whose various political offices included Secretary of War, Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and Vice-President of the United States. Although Rusk's formal education was minimal, he was mentored by Calhoun, who lent him books and secured a position for him in the office of the district clerk. While working there Rusk studied law and prepared himself for the bar.
Following his admission to the bar in 1825, Rusk relocated to Clarkesville, Georgia, where he practiced law and invested in a gold mine. He married in 1827 and began a family that grew to include seven children.
In 1834, after the managers of his gold mine embezzled company funds, Rusk chased them to Nacogdoches, Texas, only to find they had gambled away all the money. He was befriended there by Sam Houston, and seeing great potential in Texas, he decided to stay. With Houston himself as a witness, Rusk took the oath of allegiance to Texas. His family joined him in Texas the following year.
Rusk's arrival in Texas on the eve of the revolution positioned him to become an important force in the state's development, and his contributions were many. The six-foot, 200-pound Rusk distinguished himself in the military arena, and rose quickly to the rank of brigadier general. He was named Secretary of War for the Republic in 1836.
Rusk was elected to represent Nacogdoches at the Constitutional Convention of 1836. He often served as a mediator when tensions flared, and on more than one occasion was the first to suggest “a scoop of whiskey” to soothe the tempers of his fellow delegates.
Rusk served as a member in the First and Second Congresses of the Republic from 1837-1838. Military service was paid with land, and Rusk accumulated a sizeable amount of it in East Texas. He also gathered one of the finest libraries in Texas; eventually it included more than 1,000 books, including a fine law library. He was a slaveholder, and at the time of his death he had twenty slaves.
In February 1839, Thomas J. Rusk was elected by Congress to the position of chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas. Although technically he was Texas' third chief justice, Rusk was the first to perform active service in that role. At ten o'clock in the morning on January 13, 1840, Rusk called the court's first session to order. The location was the home of Major Asa Brigham, Treasurer of the Republic, at Second Street and Congress Avenue in Austin, at the time no more than a frontier town established the previous year. Despite facing harsh physical conditions, few books, confusing and contradictory laws, and an ever present danger of Indian raids, the court heard eighteen cases during the January 1840 term.
Following his service on the bench, Rusk served as President of the Constitutional Convention of 1845 and as a U.S. Senator from 1846 until his death in 1857.
Rusk's beloved wife, Mary, died of tuberculosis in 1856, and Rusk never recovered from the loss. Meanwhile, his own health was failing; he had developed a tumor in his neck. He committed suicide by shooting himself with a rifle at his home in Nacogdoches on July 29, 1857. He was remembered by his peers for his integrity, courage, and important leadership role in the formation of Texas. The U.S. Senate resolved to wear crepe on the left arm for thirty days in his memory.
(only 5 in number; listed in Dallam's Digest) the very first case was the Republic of Texas v. McCullock, et al, in which jurisdiction was denied in an opinion by Chief Justice Rusk. (The first opinion was written by Justice Jones, affirming the Brazoria County district court's decision in Hunter and Hyde v. Bernard Oelrich, which sought recovery of a horse or its value, alleged to be $350.)
Republic of Texas v. McCulloch,
Goode v. Cheshire,
Whiteman v. Garrett,
Yeamans v. Tone,
3 Texas Bar Journal 6 (1940).Benham, Priscilla Myers. Rusk, Thomas Jefferson,
Handbook of Texas Online (last updated June6, 2001). http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/RR/fru16.htmlClarke, Mary Whatley.
Thomas J. Rusk: Soldier, Statesman, Jurist (Austin, Texas: Pemberton Press, 1971).Ericson, Joe E.
Judges of the Republic of Texas (1836-1846) 247 (Dallas, Texas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1980).
Hemphill, John. Eulogy on the life and character of the Hon. Thomas J. Rusk, late U.S. Senator from Texas: delivered in the hall of the House of Representatives of the state of Texas, on the seventh of November, 1857. Austin, 1857. The Making of Modern Law. Gale. 2006. Thomson Gale. 01 June 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/395djy (access restricted to University of Texas community).Lynch, James Daniel.
The Bench and Bar of Texas 65 (St. Louis, Missouri: Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1885).
