Howell Edmunds Jackson - U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court

Jackson served on the Sixth Circuit until 1893, when President Benjamin Harrison, despite the difference in their respective political parties, nominated him to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States upon the death of Lucius Q. C. Lamar. His nomination was non-partisan, and was announced on February 2, 1893. He was confirmed only 16 days later by a unanimous Senate vote at the age of 60.

Jackson wrote forty-six opinions and four dissents. His experience in patent law served the Court well since it was clogged with patent cases at that time.

Jackson contracted tuberculosis one year after joining the Court. His brother William asked Congress to pass a retirement bill for him, but Jackson recovered and returned to the Court. There he cast one final vote on a case brought over the constitutionality of the national income tax passed in August 1894, which levied a 2% tax on income over $4,000. Jackson's return sparked attention, and one reporter commented that:

He interested the crowd more than all the rest of the bench; that his life can last but a short time and that it will probably be shortened by the effort which he has made to attend the hearing.

Jackson, however, did not cast a tie-breaking vote. The Court held that the tax was unconstitutional but Jackson voted with the minority. In a stinging dissent he lambasted the Court's ruling stating that it "was the most disastrous blow ever struck at the Constitutional power of Congress."

Three months later Jackson died in Nashville. Eighteen years later the Sixteenth Amendment was passed, giving Congress power to enact the disputed tax.

Howell Jackson is buried in Nashville's Mount Olivet Cemetery.