Choate, Joseph H. (1832–1917)

AuthorDavid Gordon
Pages356-357

Page 356

A highly conservative lawyer and leader of the American bar, Joseph Hodges Choate often appeared before the Supreme

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Court in defense of property interests and removed from the concerns of a populace he inimitably referred to as the "Great Unwashed." In MUGLER V. KANSAS (1887), Choate sought in vain to convince the Court to embrace laissez-faire, but he succeeded in wresting, in OBITER DICTUM, future judicial examination of the reasonableness of exercises of STATE POLICE POWER. Choate unequivocally endorsed constitutional rights in private property, a position the Court would soon partly accept. Indeed, his most famous victory came in POLLOCK V. FARMERS ' LOAN & TRUST COMPANY (1895), which he argued with WILLIAM GUTHRIE. Labeling the income tax "communistic" and heaping reactionary invective upon his opponent, JAMES COOLIDGE CARTER, Choate constructed a framework for the Court's decision; he attacked the tax as a DIRECT TAX on income from real property, history and judicial precedent to the contrary.

DAVID GORDON

(1986)

Bibliography

HICKS, FREDERICK C. 1931 Joseph Hodges Choate. Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. 4. New York: Scribner's.

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