Nathaniel Clark Reed or Read (circa 1810 – December 28, 1853) was a lawyer from the U.S. state of Ohio who sat on the Ohio Supreme Court for seven years.
Nathaniel Clark Reed | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court | |
| In office March 5, 1842 – March 5, 1849 | |
| Preceded by | Frederick Grimke |
| Succeeded by | Rufus Paine Spalding |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1810 Champaign County, Ohio |
| Died | December 28, 1853 (aged 43) San Francisco, California |
| Resting place | City Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater | Ohio University |
Biography
editNathaniel Reed, sometimes spelled Read, was born about 1810 in Champaign County, Ohio. He attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio and studied law under Israel Hamilton of Urbana, Ohio.[1] After he was admitted to the bar, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio.[1]
Reed was elected to a two-year term as prosecuting attorney of Hamilton County in 1835.[1] He was elected by the legislature as presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas ninth circuit in 1839.[2][3] He also was on the Ohio University Board of Trustees from 1840 to 1845.[4]
Reed was elected by the legislature to the Ohio Supreme Court in 1842 to a seven-year term to replace Frederick Grimke, resigned.[1][5] In 1845 he wrote the opinion in State vs. Hopess, a fugitive slave case, where Reed upheld the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. When Reed's term expired in 1849, abolitionists held a majority in the legislature, and they chose Rufus Paine Spalding to replace Reed.[1]
Reed returned to Cincinnati, but soon moved to San Francisco, California, where he practiced law.[1][6] He died there in 1853 and was buried at Yerba Buena Cemetery, which was relocated to City Cemetery.
Reputation
editNineteenth-century authors assessed Reed as learned and wise, but they also alluded to personal vices which led to an early death:
He was a man of marked ability, and had a clear comprehension of the law. He several times dissented from the majority and his dissent was recognized as the true rule. His usefulness was marred by his personal habits...
— Manning Force, 1897[7]
He frequently dissented from the majority and more good sound law may be found in his dissenting opinions than in the majority opinion.
— Edgar Kinkade, 1895[8]
Judge Reed was a man of elegant literary attainments, scholarly, but an erratic genius, whose whole-souled generosity and liberality proved his ruin. After two or three years practice in San Francisco, California, he fell victim to that vice which has proved a destroyer of so many men. He died in 1853, at the early age of forty-three years.
— Medico-Legal Journal, 1900[6]
Notes
editReferences
edit- "Nathaniel Clark Reed (AKA "Read")". The Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial System. Retrieved 2011-08-29.
- Force, Manning, ed. (1897). "The Supreme Court - a Historical Sketch". Bench and Bar of Ohio: a Compendium of History and Biography. Vol. 1. Chicago: Century Publishing and Engraving Company.
- Gilkey, Elliott Howard, ed. (1901). The Ohio Hundred Year Book: a Handbook of the Public Men and Public Institutions of Ohio ... State of Ohio.
- Kinkead, Edgar B (1895). "Supreme Court of Ohio". The Green Bag: An Entertaining Magazine of the Law. 7.
- Bell, Clark (1900). "Supreme Court of Ohio". The Medico-Legal Journal. 18.
- Nelson, S B; Runk, J M (1894). History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio. Cincinnati: S B Nelson and Company. p. 158.
- Walker, Charles M (1869). History of Athens County, Ohio And Incidentally of the Ohio Land Company and the First Settlement of the State at Marietta etc. Robert Clarke & Company. pp. 346–348.
Nathaniel.