Horace Gray

Horace Gray (March 24, 1828-September 15, 1902) was an American jurist.

Gray was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a prominent merchant family. He enrolled at Harvard College at the age of 13, graduated four years later and travelled in Europe for a time before returning home following a series of business problems for his family. He studied law at Harvard, although he did not receive a degree. Gray entered the bar in 1851.

In 1854, he was named Reporter of Decisions for the Massachusetts Supreme Court, a very presitigious appointment for so young a man and one which allowed him to edit numerous volumes of court records and provided for some independent legal writing, all of which earned him a very good reputation as a scholar and legal historian. This reputation made him a natural choice when a vacancy opened up on the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1864--at 36, the youngest appointee in that court's history.

Gray maintained a good reputation on the state supreme court, and was made its chief justice in 1873. While serving as chief justice, Gray hired Louis D. Brandeis as a clerk, the first justice of that court to hire a clerk.

In 1881 Chester A. Arthur nominated Gray to a vacancy on the United States Supreme Court; he was confirmed in one day. In 1889, he married Jane Matthews, who was the widow of his former colleague on the court, Stanley Matthews. He served 24 years, retiring in 1902 upon the designation of his successor, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..

Gray was one of the few Supreme Court appointees in the latter half of the 1800s who had not previously been a politician, and he maintained the opinion that law and politics were entirely separate fields. His opinions, both concurring and dissenting, were generally very long and weighted with legal history.

Gray is best known for his decision in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. This case was heard twice, though only the second hearing resulted in a decision; the justices wished to rehear the case feeling that the opinions written had not adequately explained their view of the situation (the case was about the constitutionality of a national income tax). After the first hearing, Gray wrote that he sided with the defendant (Farmer's Loan & Trust), arguing that the tax was indeed constitutional. He was in the minority, however. After the second hearing, Gray changed his stance, joining with the majority in favor of the plaintiff. Interestingly, he chose not to write a dissenting or concurring opinion in either hearing.

References

• Data drawn in part from the Supreme Court Historical Society and Oyez.