Barbour, Phillip Pendleton (b. Orange County, Va., 25 May 1783; d. Washington, D.C., 25 Feb. 1841; interred Frascati, Orange County), associate justice, 1836–1841. The son of a politically active Virginia planter, Thomas Barbour, and the socially well‐connected Mary Pendleton Thomas, Barbour enjoyed a prominent political and judicial career by adhering to strict construction of the Constitution, states' rights, and southern particularism. (See
State Sovereignty and States' Rights.)
Barbour was locally educated and apprenticed to a Virginia lawyer. After less than a year as a law clerk, Barbour embarked in 1800 on a legal career in Kentucky. He returned to Virginia in 1801 and attended the College of William and Mary before beginning to practice law in Orange County. Noted for his intelligence, family connections, and a fluid, powerful oratorical style, Barbour flourished in the county and state courts. In 1804 he married Frances Johnson, a local planter's daughter.
Inspired by the political careers of his father and older brother James, Barbour in 1812 successfully sought a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates. The Barbour brothers, both states' rights Republicans, bounded upon the national stage in 1814, when James was elected to the U.S. Senate and Philip won a seat in the House of Representatives.
Barbour was a bulwark for the strict constructionist Democrats throughout his eight terms in Congress (1814–1825 and 1827–1830). His staunch defense of Andrew
Jackson in 1819 and his efforts in 1827 to strip the Bank of the United States of every vestige of government agency earned him the confirmed support of President Jackson and an 1830 appointment to the District Court for Eastern Virginia. He endangered his relationship with Jackson by opposing Martin Van Buren for the 1832 vice‐presidential nomination but then rescued his career and probably guaranteed his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by withdrawing as the southern rights candidate in favor of Van Buren, the regular party nominee.
Barbour's nomination to the Supreme Court had been feared by constitutional nationalists since Jackson's first term, but their attention was diverted in 1836 by the simultaneous nomination of Roger
Taney as chief justice. The March 1836 confirmation of Barbour, “the pride of the Democracy of Virginia” ( Thomas Ritchie,
Richmond Enquirer, 24 March 1836), was welcomed by Democrats, who were eagerly awaiting a philosophically narrow Court. National Republicans and Whigs, however, were shocked at Barbour's appointment.
During his short tenure on the Supreme Court, Barbour strongly supported state sovereignty and the extension of state legislative powers in critical cases such as
New York v. Miln (1837),
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837),
Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky (1837), and
Holmes v. Jennison (1840).
Barbour wrote a dozen opinions, but his only important majority opinion was
New York v. Miln. This case presented the Court with a clear choice between the application of a state's
police powers, the federal government's power to regulate commerce, and individuals' rights to pursue their own pecuniary interests. (See
Federalism.) In the Miln decision, Barbour wrote, “That a state has the same undeniable and unlimited jurisdiction over all persons and things, within its territorial limits as any foreign nation; where that jurisdiction is not surrendered or restrained by the constitution of the United States. That, by virtue of this, it is not only the right, but the bourden and solemn duty of a state, to advance the safety, happiness and prosperity of its people, and to provide for the general welfare, by any and every act of legislation, which it may deem to be conducive to these ends” (p. 139).
In a notable concurring opinion in
Holmes v. Jennison, Barbour extended his argument that the relations of states to foreign countries are not defined by the constitution and added that in the absence of legislation the state governor has absolute authority.
Daniel
Webster, no friend of Barbour's judicial and political philosophies, presented a reasonable and balanced view of the judge in an 1837 letter: “Barbour, I really think is honest & conscientious; & he is certainly intelligent; but his fear, or hatred, of the powers of this government is so great, his devotion to State rights so absolute, that perhaps [a case] could hardly arise, in which he would be willing to exercise the power of declaring a state law void” (C. M. Wiltse
et al, eds.,
The Papers of Daniel Webster, vol. 4, 1980, p. 192).
Barbour's sudden death on 25 February 1841 cut short a potentially influential tenure on the Court.
Bibliography
P. P. Cynn , Philip Pendleton Barbour, in John P. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph‐Macon College, vol. 4 (1913), pp. 67–77.
Charles D. Lowery , James Barbour, A Jeffersonian Republican (1984).
Gerard W. Gawalt
