Difference between revisions of "John Louis Taylor"

Revision as of 17:46, 30 January 2018

Chief Justice
John Louis Taylor
Chief Justice, Supreme Court of North Carolina
In office
1818-1829
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Presiding Judge, North Carolina Superior Court
In office
1811-1818
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Judge, North Carolina Superior Court
In office
1798-1818
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Representive, North Carolina House of Commons
In office
1792-1794
Preceded by
Succeeded by
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In office
Preceded by
Succeeded by
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In office
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In office
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In office
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Personal details
Born	March 1, 1769
	London, UK
Died	January 29, 1829 (age 59)
	Raleigh, NC
Resting place	Oakwood Cemetery, Raleigh, NC
Residence(s)	Elmwood, Raleigh, NC
Education
Alma mater	College of William & Mary
Profession	Lawyer Politician Judge
Spouse(s)	Julia Rowan Jane Gaston
Relatives
Known for	Chief Justice of North Carolina
Signature	[[File:|left|200px]]

John Louis Taylor (1 March 1769 – 29 January 1829), was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of North Carolina. Taylor was born in London to parents of Irish descent. He emigrated to America with his older brother, settling in Virginia.^[1] Taylor was able to attend the College of William & Mary for a short while — sometime between 1785 and 1788 — but had to leave for financial reasons. His education is described as "classical," but these dates place him at the College at the same time George Wythe was teaching law (before 1789). Taylor left without taking a degree and moved to North Carolina where he studied law on his own, and was admitted to the bar in 1788, and took up practice in Fayetteville.^[2]

Taylor served in North Carolina's House of Commons (now the House of Representatives) for three terms between 1792 and 1794.^[3] In 1798, he was elected by the General Assembly as a judge of the Superior Court. In 1811, he was elected the presiding officer of the court, and moved to Raleigh. When North Carolina established a distinct Supreme Court in 1818, he was elected Chief Justice.

Taylor was a legal scholar, and reporter of his own cases and others. His publications include:

• Cases Determined in the Superior Courts of Law and Equity of the State of North Carolina (1802)
• The Carolina Law Repository, Containing Biographical Sketches of Eminent Judges, Opinions of American and Foreign Jurists, and Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of North-Carolina (1814-1816)
• Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of North Carolina from July Term 1816, to January Term, 1818, Inclusive (1818)
• A Digest of the Statute Law of North-Carolina, Relative to Wills, Executors and Administrators, the Provision for Widows, and the Distribution of Intestates Estates (1824).

Taylor also undertook two revisions of North Carolina law, assisting with one released in 1821, and the second published in 1827, which became known as "Taylor's Revisal."^[4]

Orr v. Irwin (1816)

Perhaps the best argument for Chief Justice Taylor having been a student of George Wythe is his familiarity with Wythe's work. In his decision for Orr's Heirs v. Irwin's Heirs and Devisees (1816),^[5] Taylor quotes at length from one of George Wythe's cases, Farley v. Shippen (1794), demonstrating that he must have owned a copy of Wythe's Reports, published in 1795. Instead of a detailed argument, Taylor cites a few cases from A General Abridgment of Cases in Equity, Vernon's Reports, Atkyns, and Vesey, and then prefaces his extracts of Wythe:

To these cases may be added a decision made by the late Chancellor Wythe, in Virginia, which may be cited as equal in point of authority, if not superior, to any of the British decisions, from the luminous and conclusive reasoning on which that upright and truly estimable judge founds it.

Clarum & venerabile nomen.^[6]

Taylor's quotation of Farley v. Shippen continues for three pages, and he concludes by saying:

We have transcribed thus largely from the work of the Chancellor, because it is not in every library, and the discussion of the question, which is new in this court, being the most able and copious we have anywhere met with, cannot fail to be instructive to the student, and acceptable to the practitioner, who will both be disposed to allow that the excellence of the matter atones for the length of the extract.^[7]

Taylor's effusions for Wythe were used in advertisements for the second edition of Wythe's Reports in 1852, by the publisher J. Randolph of Richmond, Virginia.

See also

• Wythe the Teacher

References

1. ↑ Max R. Williams, "Taylor, John Louis," American National Biography Online, accessed January 30, 2018.
2. ↑ Gertrude S. Carraway, "John Louis Taylor," Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, vol. 6, William S. Powell, ed. (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). Available at NCpedia, accessed January 30, 2018.
3. ↑ John H. Wheeler, Historical Sketches of North Carolina, from 1584 to 1851 (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1851), 2:129.
4. ↑ "Taylor, John Louis," Dictionary of American Biography, Dumas Malone, ed. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), 9:334-335.
5. ↑ Orr v. Irwin, 2 Law Repos. (4 N. Car.) 465
6. ↑ "Illustrious and venerable name." The Carolina Law Repository, Containing Biographical Sketches of Eminent Judges, Opinions of American and Foreign Jurists, and Reports of Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court of North-Carolina (Raleigh, NC: Joseph Gales, 1816), 2:466.
7. ↑ Carolina Law Repository, 2:469.

Further reading

• William H. Battle, "Memoir of John Louis Taylor, the First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina," North Carolina University Magazine 9, no. 7 (March 1860): 385–94.

External links

• Elmwood, North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office.
• John Louis Taylor, Find a Grave.
• Taylor, John Louis, at NCpedia.