This first book to examine the lives and work of nineteenth-century southern judges explores the emergence of a southern judiciary and the effects of regional peculiarities and attitudes on legal development. Drawing on the judicial opinions and private correspondence of six chief justices whose careers span both the region and the century, Timothy S. Huebner analyzes their conceptions of their roles and the substance of their opinions related to cases involving homicide, economic development, federalism, and race. Examining judges both on and off the bench--as formulators of law and as citizens whose lives were intertwined with southern values--Huebner reveals the tensions that sometimes arose out of loyalties to sectional principles and national professional consciousness. He exposes the myth of southern leniency in appellate homicide decisions and also shows how the southern judiciary contributed to and reflected larger trends in American legal development. This book adds to our understanding of both southern distinctiveness and American legal culture.
Timothy S. Huebner is L. Palmer Brown Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Rhodes College, where he teaches courses on the American South, U.S. Constitutional History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction era. In 2003, he founded the Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies, a nationally acclaimed interdisciplinary undergraduate research program, and for five years served as its director. In 2004 he received the Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Teaching, given annually to a member of the Rhodes faculty. That same year, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education named him the Tennessee Professor of the Year. Huebner serves as associate editor of the Journal of Supreme Court History, published three times a year by the Supreme Court Historical Society, and co-edits a series on the legal history of the American South for the University of Georgia Press. He is currently writing a textbook on the Civil War and Reconstruction period for use in undergraduate courses on the subject.
A native of Orlando, Prof. Huebner received his B.A. from the University of Miami and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Florida.
