ASSOCIATE JUSTICE HORACE GRAY - AUTOGRAPH CO-SIGNED BY: GEORGE F. EDMUNDS - HFSID 155569

HORACE GRAY and GEORGE F. EDMUNDS
The two politicians sign their names on an album leaf
Signatures: "Horace Gray" and "Geo F. Edmunds/Vt", 6x3½ album leaf. HORACE GRAY (1828-1902) graduated from Harvard at age 17, and later became the youngest ever member of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (at age 36 in 1864). In 1873, he became Chief Justice of that state court. President Arthur appointed him in 1882 to the US Supreme Court, where he served as Associate Justice until his death. One of the few Supreme Court appointees of the era who had not been a politician, Gray prided himself on separating law from politics. Gray sided with the majority in Plessy v Ferguson (1896), upholding racial segregation, but wrote the opinion in US v Wong Kim Ark (1898) that children of non-citizens, if born in the US, were US citizens. Gray was the first to employ a law clerk, both at the state and federal level. His clerk in the Massachusetts SJC was future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Republican GEORGE F. EDMUNDS (1828-1919) represented Vermont in the U.S. Senate from April 3, 1866 until his resignation on Nov. 1, 1891. He served as President Pro Tempore of the Senate from 1883 to 1885 when, with no Vice President after Garfield's assassination, he was next in line to the Presidency. He was also a member of the Electoral Commission that decided the hotly contested election of 1876 - a squeaker with only one electoral vote between Republican victor Rutherford B. Hayes and Democratic Samuel J. Tilden, who won the popular vote. Soiled. Uneven left edge where page has been removed from album. Erased pencil notes (unknown hand) at upper right corner.