Judges and Courts: 1850–1900

Abstract

This chapter discusses judiciary changes in the second half of the nineteenth century. After the middle of the century, the popular election of judges was more and more accepted as normal. Every state that entered the Union after 1846 gave voters the right to elect some or all of their judges. The California Constitution of 1849 made the whole system elective, from the supreme court down to justices of the peace. In the year 1850 alone, seven states amended their laws to provide for more popular election of judges. In 1850, both the Michigan and Pennsylvania supreme courts turned elective. In 1853, the voters of Tennessee approved a constitutional amendment; and from 1854 on, Tennessee abolished what one newspaper called a “relic of by-gone days,” the days of “repressive monarchy”; the supreme court of Tennessee became an elective body.