BIOS: Jeremiah Sullivan BLACK, 1810-1833, native of Somerset County, PA 

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Connie Burkett cgb July 26, 2009, 1:05 am 

Copyright 2009.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/somerset/
________________________________________________


Source: Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 1, Page 272
Author: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske

BLACK, Jeremiah Sullivan, jurist, b. in the Glades, Somerset Co., Pa., 10 Jan.,
1810; d. at his home in York. Pa., 19 Aug., 1883. His ancestry was Scotch-Irish.
James Black, his grandfather, came to America from the north of Ireland, and
settled in Somerset Co. Pa, where, in 1778, Henry Black, father of Jeremiah, a
man of note in his day, was born. Jeremiah's early education was obtained at
school near his father's farm. He studied law, was taken into the office of
Chauncey Forward, a lawyer in Somerset county, and was admitted to the bar in
1831. In 1838 he married a daughter of Mr. Forward. After an active and
successful practice of eleven years, he was raised to the bench. He was a
Jeffersonian democrat, and was nominated by a democratic governor, in April,
1842, for president-judge of the district where he lived, which post he held for
nine years. In 1851 Judge Black was elected one of the supreme court judges of
Pennsylvania. After serving the short term of three years, he was re-elected, in
1854, for a full term of fifteen years. On the accession of James Buchanan to
the presidency, in 1857, Judge Black became attorney-general. He was very
industrious and successful, in connection with Edwin M. Stanton, in protecting
the interests of the nation against false claimants to grants of land made by
the Mexican government to settlers in California before that country came under
the control of the United Stages. When the secession crisis arrived, in 1860-'1,
Buchanan held that there was no authority for coercing a state, if it chose to
secede and set up as an independent government; but Attorney-General Black was
of the opinion that it was the duty of the government to put down insurrection,
and that the constitution contained no provision for a dissolution of the union
in any manner whatever. Gen. Cass having resigned as secretary of state in
December, 1860, Judge Black was appointed to fill the vacancy, Edwin M. Stanton
taking the post of attorney-general. Judge Black occupied this office during the
remainder of Buchanan's administration, and exerted himself to save the
government from falling into the hands of the secessionists. In March, 1861,
when Abraham Lincoln became president, Judge Black retired from public life. He
was appointed U. S. supreme court reporter, but soon resigned that office, and
entered again upon the practice of law at his home, near York, Pa. He was
engaged in several prominent lawsuits during the last twenty years of his life,
and retained his vigor and professional skill to the close of his career. The
Vanderbilt will contest, the Milliken case, and the McGarrahan claim were among
the more noted cases in which he was engaged. He was a contributor to periodical
literature, furnished an account of the Erie railway litigation, argued the
third-term question in magazine articles, and had a newspaper discussion with
Jefferson Davis. His son, Chauncey Forward, was elected lieutenant-governor of
Pennsylvania in 1882, and in 1886 was the democratic candidate for the 
governorship.

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/