Charles Evans Hughes
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Charles Evans Hughes (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was Governor of New York, United States Secretary of State, Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the United States.
Hughes was a precocious youngster; at age 6 he found public school boring and confining, and submitted to his parents a plan of study for homeschooling, which his parents accepted. Shortly before his 12th birthday his family moved from Glens Falls, New York to New York City, where his parents enrolled him in public school. He graduated from high school at age 13, second in his class. His father was a Methodist minister from Wales converting to the Baptist persuasion following his arrival in the United States and his son Charles followed the Baptist religion.
He went to Madison College (now Colgate University) for two years (where he became a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity), then transferred to Brown University, where he continued as a member of Delta Upsilon and graduated in 1881 at age 19, youngest in his class, receiving third-highest honors. For the next year he worked at Delaware Academy in Delhi, New York where he taught Greek, Latin, and algebra in order to earn money for law school. He entered Columbia University law school in 1882, and graduated in 1884 with highest honors.
In 1885 he met Antoinette Carter, daughter of a senior partner of the law firm where he worked, and married her in 1888. They had at least one daughter, Elizabeth Hughes Gossett, who later served as president of the Supreme Court Historical Society.
In 1891 he left the practice of law to become a professor at Cornell University Law School, but in 1893 he returned to his old law firm.
In 1905 he was appointed counsel to a New York state legislative committee investigating utility rates. His uncovering of corruption led to lower gas rates in New York City. As a result he was appointed to investigate the insurance industry in New York.
He served as Governor of New York from 1907–1910, defeating William Randolph Hearst in the 1906 election to gain the position, and being the only Republican statewide candidate to win office. In 1908 he was offered the vice-presidential nomination by William Howard Taft, but declined it to run again for Governor.
In 1909 he led an effort to incorporate Delta Upsilon fraternity. It was the first fraternity to incorporate and he served as its first international president. Today several other fraternities have followed Hughes' lead by incorporating.
Subsequently he was appointed an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, serving 1910–1916, when he resigned to be Republican candidate for election as President of the United States. Defeated by Woodrow Wilson in a close election, he returned to private law practice.
In 1920 Hughes favored ratification of the treaty creating the League of Nations.
His next position in the United States government was as Secretary of State under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge from 1921–1925. As Secretary of State he convened the Washington Conference in 1921, regulating naval armament among the Great Powers. In the 1920s he served as a judge of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands. Herbert Hoover, who had appointed Hughes' son as Solicitor General in 1929, appointed Hughes Chief Justice of the United States in 1930, in which capacity he served until 1941. As Chief Justice, he led the fight against Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court.
Charles Evans Hughes Middle School (of Long Beach, CA) was named in his honor.
External links
- ["Mr. Hughes Goes to War"] (An alternate history where Hughes is elected President of the United States in 1916)
Archives
- [Judge Manuscript Information: Charles Evans Hughes]. List of archives with documents via [Judges of the United States Courts]. Retrieved April 15, 2005.
- [Archives at the Supreme Court Historical Society]
Legal opinions as Chief Justice
- [NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937)].
- [West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937)]
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