Thomas Ruffin (1787–1870) was an American jurist and justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court from 1829 to 1852 and again from 1858 to 1859. He was chief justice of that Court from 1833 to 1852.
Biography
Thomas Ruffin was born on November 17, 1787, at the residence of his maternal grandfather Thomas Roane at Newington in King and Queen County, Virginia. Ruffin graduated from the College of New Jersey and studied law in North Carolina under Archibald Murphey. He began law practice in Hillsborough, North Carolina, where he farmed. He was elected to several terms in the North Carolina House of Commons and served as a Superior Court judge from 1816 to 1818 and 1825 to 1828. In 1828, the state called upon Ruffin to bring the State Bank of North Carolina out of debt as its new president, which he did in one year. The legislature then named him to the state supreme court.
Supreme Court service
"The election of former Superior Court Judge and State Bank President Ruffin to the bench in 1829 effectively ensured the North Carolina Supreme Court's survival," according to Martin Brinkley. Ranked by Harvard Law School Dean Roscoe Pound as one of the ten greatest jurists in American history, Ruffin singlehandedly transformed the common law of North Carolina into an instrument of economic change. His writings on the subject of eminent domain—the right of the state to seize private property for the public good—paved the way for the expansion of railroads into North Carolina, enabling the "Rip Van Winkle State" to embrace the industrial revolution. Ruffin's opinions were cited as persuasive authority by appellate tribunals throughout the United States. His decisions' influence on the developing jurisprudence of the states then known as the Southwest (Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi), settled by emigrating North Carolinians in large numbers, made Ruffin a celebrated figure at home. Public veneration of the "stern prophet," as Ruffin was called, preserved his court from destruction by populist politicians.
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Together, Justice William Gaston and Ruffin, whom his colleagues elected Chief Justice in 1833 (by a coin toss, according to a popular but probably apocryphal account), dominated their less-talented brother judges, rendering treatise-like opinions that inspired one contemporary to exclaim: "No State of the Union . . . not even the United States, ever had a superior Bench; few ever had its equal."
Ruffin was involved, sometimes secretly and illegally, in the slave industry as an enslaver and a slave trader, which led directly to one of his most heinous rulings protecting the institution.
Ruffin delivered the decision in the case of North Carolina v. Mann (1830), which sanctioned the "absolute" power of an enslaver over an enslaved person.
Ruffin also authored the Dougherty v. Stepp (1835), a staple of first-year Torts classes in American law schools used to teach students about the tort of trespass upon real property.
Ruffin retired in 1852 to his plantation in Alamance County, but the legislature called him back to the Court in 1858. He retired again after about one year, at the age of 78.
Later life and legacy
His home after the end of the American Civil War until he died in 1870, the Ruffin-Roulhac House at Hillsborough, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.
In addition to his legal and political career, Ruffin was an innovative farmer and was president of the state's Agricultural Society from 1854 to 1860. In that capacity, he oversaw the North Carolina State Fair operation. He maintained close contact with his cousin Edmund Ruffin, a noted antebellum agricultural reformer.
Ruffin was also a trustee of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for some 24 years. A building at the university, Ruffin Hall, was initially named for him, but in 2020, the university board of trustees decided it would tentatively refer only to his son, Thomas Ruffin Jr.
The unincorporated community of Ruffin, in Rockingham County, is named for Thomas Ruffin.
A statue of Ruffin once stood at the North Carolina Court of Appeals building in Raleigh but was removed in 2020. Later that same year, the North Carolina Supreme Court removed a portrait of Ruffin from its courtroom.
References
- Brinkley, Martin H. "Supreme Court of North Carolina A Brief History". Archived from the original on 2008-03-21.
- "Ruffin's Slave Activity". History Department at North Carolina State University. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
- "GreeneSpace: Judging history at UNC". Greenespace.blogspot.com. 2006-05-02. Retrieved 2012-10-17.
- Dougherty v. Stepp, 18 (North Carolina Supreme Court 1835).
- Ames, James Barr; Smith, Jeremiah; Pound, Roscoe (1910). A Selection of Cases on the Law of Torts, Volume 1. Vol. 1 (3rd ed.). Harvard Law Review Publishers. pp. 59–60.
- Epstein, Richard A. (2004). "Cases and Materials on Torts". Books (8th ed.). Aspen: 9–10.
- "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- John B. Wells, III (July 1971). "Ruffin-Roulhac House" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2015-02-01.
- "State Fair | NCpedia". www.ncpedia.org. Retrieved 2022-09-24.
- Perchick, Michael (2020-07-29). "UNC Board of Trustees vote to remove names of Aycock, Daniels, Carr and Ruffin from campus buildings". 11 ABC. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
- Boyd, Jason O. (2020-07-13). "Statue of former chief justice who was slave owner removed from NC Court of Appeals building". WRAL. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
- "Supreme Court to Remove Portrait of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin from Its Courtroom" (Press release). North Carolina Judicial Branch. 2020-12-22. Retrieved 2022-08-28.
Further reading
- Huebner, Timothy S. (1999). The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890. University of Georgia Press.
- Muller, Erik L.; Greene, Sally (October 25, 2018). "His pro-slavery rhetoric was extreme. And his portrait dominates our top NC courtroom". News & Observer.
External links
- Supreme Court Official History by Martin H. Brinkley
- NC Business Leader magazine
- Thomas Ruffin Papers - University of North Carolina
- The Perils of Public Homage: Thomas Ruffin and State v. Mann in History and Memory
- The Perils of Public Homage: State v. Mann and Thomas Ruffin in History and Memory (details)
- Picture of Thomas Ruffin from UNC
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded byLeonard Henderson | Chief Justice of North Carolina Supreme Court 1833 - 1852 |
Succeeded byFrederick Nash |
- People of North Carolina in the American Civil War
- Chief justices of the North Carolina Supreme Court
- Princeton University alumni
- 1870 deaths
- 1787 births
- People from King and Queen County, Virginia
- People from Hillsborough, North Carolina
- American slave owners
- 19th-century American planters
- American proslavery activists
- People from Alamance County, North Carolina
- Members of the North Carolina House of Representatives
- 19th-century American slave traders
- 19th-century American judges
- Ruffin family
- 19th-century American merchants
- 19th-century members of the North Carolina General Assembly