Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell (March 2, 1830 – January 10, 1917) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the Chief Justice of the

Supreme Court of Mississippi The Supreme Court of Mississippi is the highest court in the state of Mississippi. It was established in the first constitution of the state following its admission as a State of the Union in 1817 and was known as the High Court of Errors and Appe ...

, and was previously a Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives and Deputy from

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

to the

Provisional Congress of the Confederate States The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, also known as the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, was a congress of Deputy (legislator), deputies and Delegate (American politics), delegates called together from th ...

from 1861 to 1862.

Biography

Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell was born in

Camden, South Carolina Camden is the largest city and county seat of Kershaw County, South Carolina. The population was 7,764 in the 2020 census. It is part of the Columbia, South Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Camden is the oldest inland city in South C ...

, the son of a Presbyterian minister and the daughter of a wealthy plantation owner. His family was of Scottish descent. He learned to read at four years old. He was educated at Davidson College in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

, thereafter moving to

Madison County, Mississippi Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 95,203. The county seat is Canton. The county is named for U.S. President James Madison. Madison County is part of the Jackson, ...

at the age of fifteen.Thomas H. Somerville, "A Sketch of the Supreme Court of Mississippi", in Horace W. Fuller, ed.,'' The Green Bag'', Vol. XI (1899), p. 513. He was admitted to the bar at

Kosciusko, Mississippi Kosciusko is a city in Attala County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 7,402 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Attala County. History Shortly before the War of 1812, David Choate, a French trader along with his wife, a Ch ...

on June 12, 1847, at the age of seventeen, making him the youngest lawyer in Mississippi, where he opened a law office and "conducted a large and profitable practice". He was elected to the state legislature in 1851 and 1859. He was the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1859 to 1860. He was a President ''pro tempore'' of the

for two days in 1861 and again for one day in 1862, becoming one of the original signers of the Confederate Constitution, and attained the rank of Lieutenant colonel in the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

, serving in the Mississippi 40th Infantry Regiment, where he was slightly wounded at the

Second Battle of Corinth The second Battle of Corinth (which, in the context of the American Civil War, is usually referred to as the Battle of Corinth, to differentiate it from the siege of Corinth earlier the same year) was fought October 3–4, 1862, in Corinth, ...

. After the war, he was elected circuit judge for the Fifth Circuit and served until 1868, when he was forced out of office for not swearing allegiance to the United States. In 1870, he was one of the commissioners who framed the code of 1871, and in 1879, he similarly worked on the code of 1880. In 1876, he became one of the chief organizers of the

Mississippi Plan The Mississippi Plan of 1875 was developed by white Southern Democrats as part of the white insurgency during the Reconstruction Era in the Southern United States. It was devised by the Democratic Party in that state to overthrow the Republican Pa ...

, which ended the era of

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

rule in Mississippi. He was appointed to a seat on the

vacated by the resignation of Jonathan Tarbell in 1876, and served as Chief Justice from 1891 to 1894. He became one of the drafters of the 1890 Mississippi Constitution, which enforced legal white supremacy. In 1895, he declined re-appointment, and returned to private practice. He was succeeded on the court by Albert H. Whitfield. Leslie Southwick
Mississippi Supreme Court Elections: A Historical Perspective 1916-1996
18 Miss. C. L. Rev. 115 (1997-1998). According to

James Meredith James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Missi ...

, the first Black student at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi ( byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment ...

and his great-grandson, he was the "father of White supremacy in Mississippi", but also spent the last decades of his life with his Black family and was a supporter of Black enfranchisement. Campbell was a supporter of legal equality of court testimony between races. Campbell died on January 10, 1917, in Canton, Missouri, and lay in state at the Mississippi Capitol Rotunda as per Governor Bilbo's request. At the time of his death, he was the last living member of the first Confederate Congress and last living signer of the Confederate Constitution. He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery.

References

External links

*
Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell
at ''

The 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 o ...

'' 1830 births 1917 deaths 19th-century American politicians 19th-century jurists Burials in Mississippi Chief Justices of the Mississippi Supreme Court Confederate States Army officers Deputies and delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States People from Camden, South Carolina People of Mississippi in the American Civil War Signers of the Confederate States Constitution Signers of the Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States 19th-century American judges {{Mississippi-politician-stub