Levi Woodbury

Life and early career

Woodbury was born in Francestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary and Peter Woodbury. He began his education at Atkinson Academy. He graduated from Dartmouth College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1809, briefly attended Tapping Reeve Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, and read law to be admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in 1812. He became the first Supreme Court justice to attend law school. He was in private practice in Francestown from 1812 to 1816. He also joined the Freemasons.

His education contributed to his early start in law, which led to his later political positions. During his time in Francestown, he wrote the Hillsborough Resolves to defend the Madison administration for their decisions in the War of 1812, which marked the beginning of his political involvement. Following the publication of his defense, he gained the recognition he needed to receive an appointment as clerk of the New Hampshire State Senate from 1816 to 1817. In quick succession, he was appointed to the Superior Court of Judicature from 1817 to 1823, and in 1823, he was elected as the governor of New Hampshire. During the time of his gubernatorial election, there was factionalism within the party. The caucus chose Samuel Dinsmoor as the candidate for governor, but an "irregular" public convention elected Woodbury as the other candidate. Woodbury defeated Dinsmoor by a wide margin, but his one year as governor was a failure. He tried to reconcile the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans but did not make a lot of progress. Throughout Woodbury's political career, he was characterized as being independent and moderate, which some scholars interpret as indecisiveness and hesitancy.

After his term as governor, he served as Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1825.

Federal government service

Senate and Cabinet service

Woodbury served as a United States Senator from New Hampshire from 1825 until 1831, during which time he served as the Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee (1827–31). Elected to serve in the New Hampshire State Senate in 1831, Woodbury did not take office due to his appointment as United States Secretary of the Navy under President Andrew Jackson, from 1831 to 1834. At the beginning of this term, he was instrumental in the appointment of fellow New Hampshireman Edmund Roberts as special agent and envoy to the Far East. Woodbury served as Secretary of the Treasury under Jackson and Martin Van Buren from 1834 to 1841, and served again as Senator from New Hampshire from 1841 to 1845. He was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1845 to 1851.

As a U.S. Senator, Woodbury was a dependable Jackson Democrat, successfully working to end the Second Bank of the United States; like Jackson he favored an "independent" treasury system and "hard money" over paper money. In retrospect, the financial Panic of 1837 and the collapse of speculative land prices were legacies of Woodbury's tenure. After the Panic, Woodbury realised that the U.S. Treasury needed a more secure administration of its own funds than commercial banks supplied, and he backed the act for an "Independent Treasury System" passed by Congress in 1840. It was largely repealed under the new administration the following year, but the foundation was laid for an independent U.S. Treasury, finally established in 1846, under President James K. Polk. Woodbury also served as chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance during a Special Session of the 29th Congress. His ten-day chairmanship is the shortest on record.

Supreme Court tenure

In the 1844 presidential election, Woodbury and the Jackson Democrats supported the Democrats' nomination of Polk. In that year, Woodbury also delivered a Phi Beta Kappa Address at his alma mater, Dartmouth College, titled "Progress." The address discussed Thomas Cole's series of five landscape paintings, The Course of Empire. Woodbury believed that unlike Cole's depiction of a cycle of rise and decline, there would be only a rise in the United States.

On September 20, 1845, Polk gave Woodbury a recess appointment as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, to a seat vacated by Joseph Story. He was sworn into office three days later. Formally nominated to the seat on December 23, 1845, Woodbury was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 3, 1846.

News of Woodbury's appointment was well received by the public and he was praised as a protector of constitutional rights. During his tenure, he wrote major opinions for the Court regarding the Contract Clause, slavery, the political question doctrine, and the Commerce Clause.

He was promoted as a candidate for president at the 1848 Democratic National Convention, his support was largely centered in New England. He remained on the Court until his death at age 61 in 1851, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Woodbury's writings shed light on his rulings as a justice, which reflect his strict constructionist views. He was one of the few justices on the court at the time to write outside of his rulings, along with McLean and Taney. Woodbury was concerned with individual rights before those rights were the focus of the court, and also thought slavery was wrong. He wrote of the judicial powers:

In due time, by stopping the fountain-head of slavery, through the power expressly granted to Congress to prohibit further additions to it from abroad ... the country will be enabled gradually to purify the corrupt waters that have flowed from this fountain ... if all this should be accomplished without violating the sacred compromises of the constitution.

Woodbury ruled based on the powers that exist in the US Constitution. He believed that slavery had been written into the Constitution but could be scaled down by Congress. In his rulings as a justice, he abided by the Fugitive Slave Clause in Article IV, Section 2.

Presidential candidacy and death

Woodbury received significant support for the presidential nomination at the 1848 Democratic National Convention, particularly among New England delegates, but the nomination went to Lewis Cass of Michigan. Hoping to be nominated in 1852, Woodbury encouraged his friends in the Democratic Party to promote his candidacy and was positioned to be a compromise candidate at the 1852 Democratic National Convention before his failing health deprived him of his chance. Woodbury died in Portsmouth on September 4 of an inflammatory tumor in the stomach.

Legacy

Woodbury is one of the few individuals to have held a constitutional office in all three branches of the U.S. government and one of seven people to have held a constitutional office in all three branches and also having served as a U.S. governor. Named in his honor are Woodbury County, Iowa; Woodbury, Minnesota; Woodbury, Tennessee; Woodbury Avenue in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Woodbury School in Salem, New Hampshire; and several ships called the USS Woodbury. He is featured on a New Hampshire historical marker (number 43) along New Hampshire Route 136 in Francestown. His daughter Mary married Montgomery Blair, Abraham Lincoln's Postmaster General. His son Charles L. Woodbury was a lawyer who served as United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and served on the New Hampshire House of Representatives and the Massachusetts General Court.

Works

Political, Judicial, and Literary Writings (edited by N. Capen, Boston, 1852)