Draft:William C. Folkes

Tennessee Supreme Court Justice William C. Folkes.

William C. Folkes (June 8, 1845 – May 15, 1890) was a justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1886 to 1890.

Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, to parents of English descent, he was sixteen years old and a school-boy when the American Civil War broke out. He quickly enlisted in the Confederate States Army, joining Moorman's Battery, enrolled at Lynchburg, and took part in the First Battle of Bull Run. He was severely wounded in that engagement. After his recovery, he rejoined the army. He lost a leg in the bloody charge at Malvern Hill. Notwithstanding this disability, he continued in active service until the close of the war.

elected 1886; served until 1890; member of Confederate Army.

William C. Folkes was The war ended, he again took up his collegiate studies at Chapel Hill, N.C., graduating in a short while. He thereupon entered the law department of the University of Virginia, taking his degree in 1866. He determined to seek a newer community as a location, and he emigrated to Memphis, Tenn. The bar of that city had drawn to it the best of the talent of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas, and was undoubtedly the ablest in the South. The young Virginian took good rank, and soon commanded a large practice. He married Mary, the daughter of Judge Archibald Wright, and became a member of the firm of Wright & Folkes. He continued in full practice down to the year 1886. The Memphis Bar then presented his name as a candidate for Supreme Judge. He was a man of fine appearance and great courtliness of manner; and a personal canvass of the State, added to the very earnest support of the Memphis Bar, resulted in his securing more than two thirds of the whole vote of the nominating convention on the first ballot, over several most worthy and popular opponents.

None of his colleagues set themselves to the heavy task before them with greater energy than he. His loss of a leg made his habits of life sedentary in a large measure and work literally became both his exercise and recreation. There is now no living evidence of the greater part of the work he and his colleagues did. Nothing now shows it except the hundreds of decrees entered at each term. But outside of the examination of cases to be decided orally, he put a great deal of patient study on the writing of his opinions in cases where the court directed opinions should be written; and each of them is a finished literary production. The strain of this work proved too much for him; it exhausted his vitality. He yielded to what was seemingly a trifling illness, and died rather suddenly at Memphis, May 17, 1890. There has rarely occurred the death of any public man in Tennessee whose taking-off was the occasion of the expression of so much sorrow throughout the State.

The opinions of Judge Folkes have stood well the test of time. It so happened that it fell to his lot to deliver many opinions on the law of corporations and of commercial paper, — two branches of, the law that are among the most important, and in which the fiercest legal battles are fought. Judge Folkes never touched one of these questions but that he illuminated it; and as the years have passed by, and lawyers have had full opportunity to examine his judicial utterances closely, the greater respect his opinions have commanded. They are smoothly expressed in the best of English; following established precedents where there is no conflict of authority, but seeking only the better logic and sounder reason where the adjudicated cases were at variance. In the stating of the conflict, the opposing authori ties were fully enumerated; but mere num bers of cases availed nothing in balancing his mind. It is safe to say that the years to come will only add to the high regard in which the opinions of Judge Folkes are now held.

References

Category:1845 births Category:1890 deaths Category:Justices of the Tennessee Supreme Court

This open draft remains in progress as of July 5, 2023.