Archaeology

Arts

Economy

Education

Historical Overviews

Science, & Technology

Sports & Recreation

Transportation

Wildlife & Natural Resources

Search:

Reverdy Johnson

Maryland Historical Society

Reverdy Johnson, attorney, politician, and statesman, was one of the most prominent lawyers of his day, particularly noted for his skill as a constitutional lawyer.

Johnson was born in Annapolis on May 21, 1796, the first child of John Johnson (1770-1824) and Deborah Ghiselin (1771-1847). His father was a distinguished lawyer with a long career of public service that ended with his tenure as Chancellor of Maryland from 1821 until his death. Johnson had three younger brothers. Johnson attended St. John's College, graduating in 1811, and then studied law with his father and a Judge Stephens. The young attorney was admitted to the bar in 1816 and began practicing in Upper Marlboro, the Prince George's county seat. In 1817, Johnson moved to Baltimore and became associated with three outstanding attorneys, Luther Martin, William Pinkney, and Roger B. Taney. In association with Thomas Harris, clerk of the Maryland Court of Appeals, he published Harris and Johnson Reports from 1820 to 1827, which reported Court of Appeals decisions.

On November 16, 1819, Johnson married Mary Mackall Bowie, who gave birth to fifteen children during their marriage.

Until 1845, Johnson primarily devoted himself to his law practice, although he also served as a state senator from 1821 to 1827. In 1845 he was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate, but resigned in March 1849 when President Zachary Taylor appointed him Attorney General of the United States, a position he held until July 1850.

Although personally opposed to slavery, Johnson represented the slave-owner seeking return of his escaped slave in the 1857 Dred Scott case. Johnson's arguments are credited with determining the decision against Scott's freedom. Sympathetic to the South and the conservative wing of the Democratic party, Johnson supported Stephen A. Douglas for president in 1860 and served as a Maryland delegate to an 1861 convention in Washington, DC, that sought to find a peaceful solution to the conflict developing between North and South. Johnson opposed secession, however, and used his considerable influence to keep Maryland in the Union

In 1863 Johnson returned to the United States Senate, where he sat until 1868. He pleased emancipationists with a speech favoring a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery, but reversed that position a year later by supporting Democratic presidential candidate Gen. George B. McClellan and opposing Maryland's constitution of 1864, which on November 1 of that year made Maryland first slave state to voluntarily free its slaves. After the war, Johnson favored reconciliation and compromise but voted for the Reconstruction measures in the belief that no better terms could be obtained for restoring the southern states to the Union. His opposition to impeachment persuaded other senators to vote against President Andrew Johnson's removal from office.

President Johnson appointed him ambassador to Great Britain in 1868. Reverdy Johnson negotiated the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, settling disputes between the two countries arising from the Civil War. Partisan politics resulted in rejection of the treaty by the Senate and Johnson's recall when Ulysses Grant became president, but the subsequent treaty achieved no more than Johnson's earlier agreement had accomplished.

Johnson died as the result of an accidental fall on February 10, 1876, at the governor's residence in Annapolis, Maryland, where he was a guest while awaiting the call of a case by the Maryland Court of Appeals. Reverdy Johnson was buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore.

—Jean B. Russo