Horace Harmon Lurton (1910-1914)
Lived from 1844 to 1914.
Early Life and Legal Career
Horace H. Lurton was born in Newport, Kentucky but raised in Tennessee. Lurton attended Douglas University, but dropped out to fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War. During the war, Lurton’s mother became extremely sick. After successfully petitioning President Abraham Lincoln to release her son to care for her, Lurton was relieved of his duties and allowed to return home.
Lurton later attended Cumberland Law School, graduating in 1867 and opening his own practice in Clarksville, Tennessee. In 1886, Lurton was appointed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, where he remained until being appointed to a federal appellate judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit by President Grover Cleveland.
Appointment to the Supreme Court
In 1909, President William Howard Taft appointed Lurton to a seat on the United States Supreme Court. While on the bench, Lurton sided most frequently with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a progressive Supreme Court justice. The most notable opinion he authored was that in Coyle v. Smith, which held that the federal government could not tell a state where to locate its capital, as all states must be on “equal footing.” Due to health complications later in life, Lurton served on the Court for just four years.
Death
Lurton died of a heart attack on July 12, 1914 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Notable Cases
Coyle v. Smith (1911)
