Simeon Eben Baldwin (February 5, 1840 – January 30, 1927) was an American jurist, law professor, and politician who served as the 65th

governor of Connecticut The governor of Connecticut is the head of government of Connecticut, and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Connecticu ...

Education

The son of jurist, Connecticut governor and U.S. Senator

Roger Sherman Baldwin Roger Sherman Baldwin (January 4, 1793 – February 19, 1863) was an American politician who served as the 32nd Governor of Connecticut from 1844 to 1846 and a United States senator from 1847 to 1851. As a lawyer, his career was most notable ...

and

Emily Pitkin Perkins Emily Pitkin (Perkins) Baldwin, (January 1, 1796 – January 29, 1874), was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Enoch Perkins and Hannah Pitkin. On October 25, 1820 she married Roger Sherman Baldwin, who became the Governor of Connecticut in 1844 ...

, Baldwin was born in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

, where he lived for much of his life. As a boy he attended the

Hopkins Grammar School Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1660, Edward Hopkins, seven-time governor of the Connecticut Colony, bequeathed a portion of his estate to found s ...

. Active in all its alumni work, he was, more specifically, for many years president of its board of trustees; in 1910, on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the school, he delivered a discourse on its history; when shortly before his death it became necessary to house the school in new quarters, he was one of the largest, if not the largest, of the individual donors whose contributions made possible a set of modern buildings for what he was fond of referring to as the fourth oldest institution of learning in the United States. From the

he went to

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

, from which he was graduated with the class of 1861. There is scant information as to his four years at college. During that period he kept a diary from which he read extracts on the fifty-fifth reunion of his class, but this diary is not at present available. That the studious traits which he later manifested were not altogether lacking at this time may be inferred from the fact that he was elected a member of

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

and Skull & Bones. Such records as we have do not indicate that there was anything unusual about this young student who had among his classroom contemporaries the poet

Edward Rowland Sill Edward Rowland Sill (April 29, 1841February 27, 1887) was an American poet and educator. Biography Born in Windsor, Connecticut, he graduated from Yale in 1861, where he was Class Poet and a member of Skull and Bones. He engaged in business in ...

, and two others who like himself were later to have much to do with the life of the university, his friends Tracy Peck and Franklin Bowditch Dexter.

Early years

For the two years following his graduation from college he studied law at Yale, at Harvard, and in his father's office. In 1863 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law. His seventeen years of service as an associate justice and chief justice of the supreme court of his state and his four years as governor, coming as they did in the latter part of his life, may have had a tendency to obscure for his later contemporaries the fact that he was at least as much as anything else an eminently successful lawyer. In the practice of the law he won distinction both in his own state and outside, and with it the financial emoluments that usually accompany success at the bar. He was keenly alive to the practical side of the lawyer's work and never lost his zest for it. Till almost the very end of his life he maintained a law office, which he visited daily as long as his health would permit, and kept adding to his law library. As late as 1919 his book ''The Young Man and the Law'' revealed him still at heart a lawyer. In 1878, he was one of the founders of the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

and served as president of the

from 1890–1891. For twelve years (1907–1919) he was the director of the

Comparative Law Bureau The ''Annual Bulletin'' of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association (ABA) was a U.S. specialty law journal (1908–1914, 1933). The first comparative law journal in the United States, it surveyed foreign legislation and legal lit ...

(as well as its '' Annual Bulletins editor for general jurisprudence). On 19 October 1865 he married Susan Mears Winchester, daughter of Edmund Winchester and Harriet Mears. Simeon and Susan had three children: Florence, Roger and Helen. During the middle portion of his life he was actively engaged in teaching law. Here also he showed ability. One who studied law under him and like him became chief justice of the supreme court of errors of Connecticut says that his old pupils regard his work as a teacher ''"as more distinctive and weightier in influence upon human life than any other portion of his work. Probably in his day not a half dozen teachers of the law in our country could be placed in his class"'' (''

American Bar Association Journal The ''ABA Journal'' (since 1984, formerly ''American Bar Association Journal'', 1915–1983, evolved from '' Annual Bulletin'', 1908–1914) is a monthly legal trade magazine and the flagship publication of the American Bar Association. It is no ...

'', February 1927, p. 74). To the same effect may be interpreted the action of the Association of American Law Schools, which in 1902 elected him its president. In 1869 he was appointed to the faculty of the

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

, then in a moribund condition. His active participation in the affairs of that school was to continue for just fifty years, for it was not until 1919 that he retired as professor emeritus. The revival of the law school was largely his work. He increased the size of the faculty, instituted new courses, developed graduate work, and for a long time carried much of the financial responsibility for the school's existence (''Yale Law Journal'', March 1927, p. 680). It was characteristic of him that when shortly before his retirement the method of teaching was changed to the so-called ''"case system,"'' to which Judge Baldwin, like most of his contemporaries, objected, he never for an instant changed his attitude of loyalty to the school, which some years later was to be most generously remembered in his will. In addition to his work as lawyer and teacher he took an active part in the public affairs of New Haven. He served on the Public Parks commission, on the New Haven common council, and on the board of directors of the New Haven Hospital. Deeply interested in religious work, he was president of the New Haven Congregational Club and of the

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

. From 1884 until 1896 he was president of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, for which he wrote many papers mostly on subjects of history.

Political life

Even more diversified than his activities in local affairs was his participation in those that concerned the state as a whole. Never a politician, and to the end of his days allowing such honors and offices as came to him to come unsought and unfought for, he nevertheless early became identified with the political life of his state. Starting as a Republican, he was nominated for state senator from the fourth district in 1867, but was not elected. In 1884 he was one of the ''"independents"'' who refused to support James G. Blaine, and was chosen president of the Republican organization in Connecticut. The greatest of his political honors came to him when he was an old man. Automatically retired from the position of chief justice of the supreme court, February 5, 1910, because he had reached the age limit of seventy years, he that year was nominated for governor on the Democratic ticket and was elected. At the

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 ...

in June 1912 he received twenty votes for the presidential nomination. In November of the same year he was elected governor of his state, nominally strongly Republican, for a second term of two years. He was Democratic candidate for United States senator from Connecticut for the term beginning March 4, 1915. Caught in a Republican landslide and defeated by incumbent Senator

Frank B. Brandegee Frank Bosworth Brandegee (July 8, 1864October 14, 1924) was a United States representative and senator from Connecticut. Early life Frank Brandegee was born in New London, Connecticut, on July 8, 1864. He was the son of Augustus Brandegee, w ...

, he nevertheless ran ahead of his party ticket by several thousand votes. It was inevitable that the high regard in which he was held as a lawyer should lead to his being named on various state commissions of reform. In 1872, less than a decade after he began to practice law, the Connecticut legislature elected him one of a commission of five that made the Revision of 1875, the General Statutes of the State of Connecticut. In the same year he was a member of a state commission appointed to revise the education laws. Six years later he was named by the governor of Connecticut acting under a resolution of the state legislature one of a commission of five to inquire into the feasibility of simplifying legal procedure. This commission drew up a set of rules and forms which were approved and adopted by the court as the basis of pleading in civil cases. In 1886 a commission was appointed to report on a better system of state taxation. He was a member of that commission and drew the report. Again in 1915-17 he was chairman of a commission established by the State to revise its system of taxation. But his participation in state affairs was not merely political and legal; he was also actively associated with charitable and religious organizations. At one time or another he was a director of the General Hospital Society of Connecticut and a director of the Missionary Society of Connecticut; he served as moderator of the General Conference of Congregational Churches of Connecticut, and he was a delegate of the Congregational Churches to the national council. His scholarship and his interest in questions of the day led him into affiliations with many of the learned societies. Nor were these affiliations perfunctory only. He regularly attended the society meetings, wrote papers for them, and rose to the highest places in their councils. He was president of the American Social Science Association (1897), International Law Association (1899), American Historical Association (1905), Political Science Association (1910), American Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes (1911), Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Connecticut Society of the Archaeological Institute of America (1914). He was vice-president of the

Archaeological Institute of America The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is North America's oldest society and largest organization devoted to the world of archaeology. AIA professionals have carried out archaeological fieldwork around the world and AIA has established re ...

(1898) and of the social and economic science section of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

(1903). He was an associate of the Institute of International Law. He was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1912. He was a member also of the National Institute of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, elected a member of the

American Antiquarian Society The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...

in 1893,American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
/ref> and a corresponding member of the

Massachusetts Historical Society The Massachusetts Historical Society is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154 Boylston Street in Bost ...

, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and L'Institut de Droit Comparé. Baldwin was among the incorporators of

Connecticut College Connecticut College (Conn College or Conn) is a private liberal arts college in New London, Connecticut. It is a residential, four-year undergraduate institution with nearly all of its approximately 1,815 students living on campus. The college w ...

at its founding in 1911, and he served on its board of trustees through 1924. His connections with national and international matters touching law and its ramifications were not restricted to membership in learned societies. In 1899 he was appointed by the State Department a delegate from the United States to the Sixth International Prison Congress, which met the next year at Brussels. Again in 1905 he was United States delegate to a similar congress held at Budapest and was made its vice-president. At this congress he presented his report on the question ''"By what principles and in what manner may convicts be given work in the fields, or other public work in open air?"'' In 1904, appointed by President Roosevelt one of the delegates to represent the United States, he was elected vice-president of the Universal Congress of Lawyers and Jurists held in connection with the St. Louis Exposition of that year. His writings cover a number of fields. Among his more pretentious works are: ''A Digest of All the Reported Cases... of Conn.'' (2 vols., 1871, 1882), ''Cases on Railroad Law'' (1896), ''Modern Political Institutions'' (1898), ''American Railroad Law'' (1904), ''The American Judiciary'' (1905), ''The Relations of Education to Citizenship'' (1912), ''Life and Letters of Simeon Baldwin'' (1919), ''The Young Man and the Law'' (1919). He was a most prolific writer of articles and pamphlets. Some ten years before his death he collected and presented to the Yale Law School nearly a hundred of these in four bound volumes which he entitled in order of numbering: Law and Law Reform, Studies in History, International and Constitutional Law, and Studies in Legal Education and Social Sciences. While these titles very aptly classify his literary output the volumes themselves do not contain all his miscellaneous publications. Simeon Eben Baldwin, 1910

He was not above medium height, somewhat slight of figure and seemingly frail in physique, though this frailty was in appearance only as he was a man of tremendous, tireless energy. Although in no sense athletic, he made some sort of exercise in the open air each day almost a religious duty. At one time this took the form of bicycle rides, though he soon gave these up in favor of walking. His rule was to cover at least four miles a day, rain or shine, and there was no part of the less congested portions of New Haven and its environs over which he had not many times traveled as he walked unhurriedly alone, stooping somewhat, buried in thought, compelled by poor eyesight to keep his gaze fixed upon his path a few feet ahead of him. This methodical exercise he kept up until, in his last years, injuries received as the result of a fall confined him to his home. His personality, externally at least, was cold, dignified, and grave. Some of those who knew him best say that he was in reality warm-hearted but the characteristics that made an impression on every one were his reserve and his austerity; in general he was an object of respect rather than of affection; he had none of the weaknesses that make men lovable. As deeply religious as any of his Puritan ancestors, he was most broadly tolerant of the beliefs of others. His conception of civic duty was Roman, but he was ever willing to oppose even the State in defending what he regarded as the constitutional and legal rights of the individual. He was frugal to such a degree that on one occasion when traveling as governor with his staff, instead of partaking of a sumptuous dinner in a dining car specially provided for them, he rode in a coach and ate a sandwich which he had brought from home. With this frugality he combined a generosity even more marked. Part of his life was lived in the days of high hats. Such hats, when they became old, were usually donated to the missionaries. To quote from one who for many years served with Judge Baldwin on the committee of a missionary society, ''"He used to turn in his old high hat at the shop for fifteen cents, but he would give $1,500 to the committee for missions."'' He was unyielding where a principle was involved; but in matters of mere policy he had the remarkable ability, once he was outvoted, to make the policy of the majority his own even though he had strenuously opposed it. Quiet and unassuming in manner he could be aggressive when he deemed it necessary, as he did in his controversy with Roosevelt when the latter dared to ridicule his ability as a judge. Prompt and unfailing in meeting appointments, unimportant though they might be, he demanded the same consideration from others, even refusing to wait for dinner guests who might be late. Both by nature and training he was conservative, but not reactionary; his mind was open as well as active. If his plea for castration and whipping as generally applicable methods of punishing criminals savors of the archaic (''Yale Law Journal'', June 1899), he was capable also of starting nationwide comment, as on the radically new ideas embodied in his ''"The Natural Right to a Natural Death"'' (''Journal of Social Science'', 1889). In January 1910 he published ''"The Law of the Airship"'' (''American Journal of International Law''), and in November ''"Liability for Accidents in Aerial Navigation"'' (Michigan Law Review, IX, 20). At his suggestion the Connecticut legislature (1911) passed a law regulating the use of flying machines, the first law to be enacted on this subject. France shortly afterward modeled her law on that of Connecticut. In 1911 he had two articles on airship law in foreign journals (''Revue de l'Institut de Droit Comparé'' and ''Zeitschrift für Völkerrecht und Bundesstaatsrecht''). Notwithstanding his work in many fields, his real interest was always in modern law. He has been called an antiquarian, but his studies in this line did not go beyond colonial history, more particularly Connecticut history. Few men have played a more important part in so many activities that concerned their own community. When he was presented for the degree of LL.D. at the Yale Commencement in 1916 he was called, inter alia, ''"the first citizen of Connecticut."'' No designation could have fitted him better. ―George Edward Woodbine He was the son of

, brotherin-law of

Dwight Foster (1828–1884) Dwight Foster (December 13, 1828April 18, 1884) was an American lawyer and politician from Massachusetts. He served as Massachusetts Attorney General and was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Early life Foster was ...

, uncle of

Edward Baldwin Whitney Edward Baldwin Whitney (August 16, 1857 – January 5, 1911) was an American lawyer and judge. Life Edward Baldwin Whitney was born August 16, 1857. His father was linguist William Dwight Whitney (1827–1894) of the New England Dwight family. Hi ...

, grandson of

Simeon Baldwin Simeon Baldwin (December 14, 1761 – May 26, 1851) was son-in-law of Roger Sherman, father of Connecticut Governor and US Senator Roger Sherman Baldwin, grandfather of Connecticut Governor & Chief Justice Simeon Eben Baldwin and great-grandfat ...

, and the great-grandson of

Roger Sherman Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an American statesman, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign four of the great state papers of the United States related to the founding: the Cont ...

Notes

References

*"Simeon Eben Baldwin. ''Dictionary of American Biography Base Set''. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2005. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC *David O. White, ''Museum of Connecticut History, Connecticut State Library.'' Edited and revised by CSL Staff, September 2002. https://web.archive.org/web/20070203095604/http://www.cslib.org/gov/baldwins.htm Accessed March 14, 2008

External links

* *
Governor Simeon Eben Baldwin
Connecticut State Library

Connecticut Heritage Gateway
Baldwin Family Papers (MS 55).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. *

Connecticut Heritage
Simeon Eben Baldwin: Lawyer, Social Scientist, Statesman by Frederick H. Jackson
Jstor

Yale University

American Historical Association *[http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/misc/baldwin.html American Business Corporations Before 1786]
Skull & Bones 1861
Digital Collections at Yale University
Sherman Genealogy Including Families of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, England
By Thomas Townsend Sherman

at

Political Graveyard The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The name comes from the website's inclusion of burial locations of ...

Sherman-Hoar family
at