George Mathews

George Mathews Jr. (September 30, 1774 – November 14, 1836), was a Judge of the Superior Courts of the Territory of Mississippi and the Territory of Orleans, and Presiding Judge of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1813 until his death in 1836. His ruling in Marie Louise v. Marot was cited as precedent by dissenting U.S. Supreme Court Justice John McLean in the 1856 landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford case.

Early life

Mathews was born in Augusta County, Virginia, on September 30, 1774, the son of a planter and Revolutionary War officer, George Mathews and his wife, Polly. The elder Mathews would later serve twice as Governor of Georgia. In 1785, the elder Mathews moved himself and his whole family to Wilkes County, Georgia, to land that today is in Oglethorpe County.

Mathews returned to Virginia for his education at Liberty Hall Academy (which later became Washington and Lee University). He originally set out to become a physician but was persuaded by his father to study law under his brother, John Mathews, in Augusta, Georgia. He married Harriet Flowers in 1809 and they resided near St. Francisville, Louisiana, at her family's Butler Greenwood Plantation.

George and Harriett Mathews raised indigo, cotton, sugar cane, and corn on the plantation, shipping the crops from their own dock on Bayou Sara and extending their land holdings to include a sugar plantation in Lafourche Parish that, according to Lewis Gray's figures, placed them among the top 9% of sugar planters in the state in the 1850s. The Mathews owned slaves, and used their labor on their plantation. In an 1826 report, George Mathews relayed in family correspondence that his slaves in the field were picking 126 pounds of cotton, each.

Career on the bench In 1804 Mathews was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to be judge of the Superior Court of the newly created Territory of Mississippi. He served for two years on that court before being appointed judge of the Superior Court for the Territory of Orleans in 1806.

When Louisiana became a state in 1813, the territorial courts were replaced by a new Supreme Court. Mathews was appointed by Governor William C.C. Claiborne as judge of that new high court on February 23, 1813. He served alongside Judges Dominic Augustin Hall, Pierre Derbigny and Francois Xavier Martin.

21 years later, his precedent was relied upon by US Supreme Court Justice John McLean, who dissented from the court's Dred Scott ruling that a slave was a piece of property that could by transported by his owner from a Southern state into a territory that forbade slavery without losing his slave status.

Legacy and honors Mathews died in St. Francisville on November 14, 1836. He left a very large fortune at his death, and his will was successfully attacked; one of its dispositions being annulled by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

The Louisiana Historical Association celebrated the Centenary of the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1922 and at that time Mathews was remembered as, "short, rotund, placid, even-tempered, and genial, with a touch of humor and pleasantry in his intercourse with men and on the bench. His disposition crops out in his opinions which, moreover, are fine specimens of taste and learning."

Mathews, Louisiana, is named in his honor.