Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2024 All Rights Reserved USGenNet Data Repository Please read USGenNet Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ =========================================================================== Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== Portrait and Biographical Album of Washtenaw County, Michigan Biographical Pub. Co., Chicago - 1891 [235-237] HON. THOMAS M. COOLEY was born on the sixth day of January, 1824, at Attica, N.Y. The family was one of long New England residence, the first of the name in America, BENJAMIN COOLEY, having come to Massachusetts in 1630. MR. COOLEY'S father, THOMAS, was a farmer, born in Massachusetts, who removed to New York in 1804, Although not wealthy, he was able to give his son a good academic education, which was supplemented by several terms' experience in teaching school. In 1844 MR. COOLEY removed to Palmyra, N.Y. where he commenced the study of law in the office of THERON K. STRONG, afterward Justice of the Supreme Court of that State. The next year he removed to Adrian, Mich., where he continued his law studies in the office of Tiffany & Beaman, holding meanwhile the office of De- puty County Clerk and Deputy Registrar in Chancery. He was admitted to the bar in January, 1846, and in Decem- ber of the same year married Miss MARY ELIZABETH HORTON. His practice of the law was begun in Tecumseh, Mich., in 1846, in partnership with CONSIDER A. STACY. and he remained there two years, returning to Adrian in 1848 to practice in the firm of Beaman & Cooley, which after- ward became Beaman, Beecher & Cooley. He was at that time a a free-soil Democrat, and during the campaign of 1848 he edited the Adrian Watchtower in the Van Buren interest. He was also during this time Circuit Court Commissioner and Village Recorder, and managed with his father-in-law DAVID HORTON, of a large farm.. In 1850 he removed to Toledo. There he was an un- successful candidate for the office of district judge. He returned once more to Adrian, in 1852, and formed a partnership for the practice of law with a former student in his office, a MR. CROSWELL. In 1857 MR. COOLEY was chosen by the Legislature to compile the General Statutes of the State and his com- pilation has been a model for those made since that time. In that same year the State Supreme Court was re-organized and he was chosen Reporter. This posi- tion he held until in 1864, when he was appointed Justice to fill the vacancy caused by the death of JUDGE MANNING. Meantime, in 1859, he had removed to Ann Arbor in order to fill a Chair as professor in the newly established Law Department of the Univer- sity of Michigan, which Chair, known as the Jay Professorship, he held for twenty-five years. His lectures in the University were limited to legal and constitutional subjects until his resignation of the Profressorship of Law, but on the appointment of C. H. ADAMS to the Presidency of Cornell University he con- sented to accept temporarily the Professorship of History, and gave lectures as such for one college year, and also for several years thereafter on various topics in Political Science. A lecture on "The Federal Supreme Court and Its Place in the American Consti- tutional System," which was the first of a series of lectures delivered by eminent speakers and writers de- livered in the University, was published by G. P. Putnam's sons with the others in a volume entitled "The Consti- tutionalHistory of the United States as Seen in the Development of American Laws." Soon after JUDGE COOLEY'S appointment to the bench was begun the publication of a series of books on legal subjects, which were produced rapidly during the next twelve years. His first work was a digest, the first in this State, of the decisions of the Supreme Court, which was followed, in 1868, by what is probably his best known work, the treatise on "The Constitutional Limitations Upon Legislative Power," which has gone through six editions and has given him a very high rank among American legal writers. This was followed in 1872 by an edition of Blackstone's Commentaries, and in 1874 by one of Story on the Constitution. In 1877 he published a volume on the "Law of Taxation," and in 1870 another on "Torts." He has also published a short summary of constitutional law, and a history of Michigan which was written in 1881 for the series of "American Commonwealths," edited by HORACE E. SEUDDER, and as the associate editor of Appleton's Encyclopedia he wrote the law articles for the last edition of that work. He has been a prolific writer for the reviews and magazines of the day, and has written some not- able articles. Some years before the Presidential campaign of 1884 he had published in a law journal of St. Louis a paper on "The Responsibility of Pub- lic Officers," beginning with the phrase "A public office is a public trust" - a phrase of which Col. LAMONT made such vigorous use in the campaign re- ferred to as to be credited by many with its author- ship. His papers were for the most part on gover- mental subjects, but sometimes on those of an historical nature, and in 1889 he wrote an elaborate introduction to an illustrated work on "The American Railway," in which railways and the principles con- trolling them, as well as the law for their regulation, were discussed. When Prof. BRYCE entered upon the preparation of his great work on the American Common- wealth he put himself in communication with JUDGE COOLEY, and the notes that appear in the completed work show that the reliance placed upon his opinions was very considerable throughout. JUDGE COOLEY has also frequently been an orator on public occasions, particularly those on which the members of the legal associations wer assembled, and he has addressed at different times the State Bar Associations of South Carolina, Georgia and New York. On the organization of the Johns Hopkins University he was invited to deliver lectures on Constitutional Law and Municipal Government to special classes, and he did so for three years, and when, in 1889, there was an assemblage at that University to commemorate the adoption of the Constitution of Japan, he was invited to preside, and delivered a short address. He gave also, by special invitation, a course of lectures in the year 1890, to the law class of Yale College, on Inter-State Commerce, which lectures were repeated in the University of Michigan. JUDGE COOLEY'S connection with the Supreme Court of Michigan lasted until 1885, when by an unfortu- nate combination of circumstances he was defeated in his candidacy for re-election; and during that period he did much, in conjunction with colleagues of unusual judicial ability, to give the court an enviable reputation throughout the United States for the soundness and clearness of its decisions. He wrote the opinions in many of the most important cases, and these opinions, logical and well expressed, have given many valuable precedents for future de- cisions in his own and other States. The Judge's attention was first directed to the line of work to which his latter years have been given up, in January, 1882, when he was asked by the presidents of the Baltimore & Ohio, the Penn- sylvania, the Erie and the New York Central Rail- roads to serve on a board of arbitration which was to settle the question of "the difference in rates that should exist both eastwardly and westwardly upon all classes of freights between the several terminal Atlantic ports." The roads named, after many unsuccessful trials and disastrous rate wars, had finally settled upon a system apparently dis- criminating against New York and Boston, and in favor of Philadelphia and Baltimore, and it was to settle this charge of discrimination that the board was called upon. The other members were Senator THURMAN and ex-Minister WASHBURNE, and after meeting and hearing arguments in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore the commissioners at length decided that it was not clear that the present system was inequitable. This was JUDGE COOLEY'S first experience in dealing with the perplexing problems of railway management, but he showed here such distinguished ability that when, in 1886, JUDGE GROSHAM found it necessary to appoint a new receiver for that portion of the Wabash Railway within his jurisdiction, he appointed JUDGE COOLEY unhesitatingly and of his own motion. The problem presented was one of great difficulty, involving, as it did, the operation of a long and complicated system, both ends of which were under hostile management. The duty was discharged how- ever, with conspicuous success so long as it was in his hands. Within three months he had the sys- tem in profitable operation, and when he laid down the receivership as abruptly as he had taken it, he had a body of subordinates who were able adn effective and attached to himself. But his most conspicuous ser- vice in railway matters was yet to come. The abuses in railroad traffic and management had gone so far as to merit the attention of Congress, and to bring forth, as the result of a thorough investigation by a Senate committee, the bill known as the Inter- State Commerce Law. This bill established a com- mission of five members, known as the Inter-State Commerce Commission, which was to act as a court to oversee the execution of the rules and regulations for railway traffic laid down in the bill. The Com- mission, it was evident, would have great power, and it was of the highest importance that good men be elected at the start to establish sound prece- dents in the interpretation of the law. JUDGE COOLEY was urgently requested by President CLEVELAND to accept a position on the Commission for the longest term, six years, and having done so was chosen Chair- man. Since then all of his time that health has per- mitted has been given to the business of the Commis- sion, and his experience and reputation have gone far to make the decisions of the Commission respected and obeyed, and to establish it on a firm and lasting basis, with a body of sound and equitable precedent to govern and to guide the future administration of the law. ===============================================================================