George Sutherland

US Supreme Court justice from 1922 to 1938

For other people named George Sutherland, see George Sutherland (disambiguation) .

George Alexander Sutherland (March 25, 1862 – July 18, 1942) was a British-born American jurist and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1922 to 1938. A member of the Republican Party , he also represented Utah in the U.S. Senate from 1905 to 1917 and in the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1903.

Born in Buckinghamshire , England , Sutherland immigrated to the United States with his family as a young child in the 1860s. After attending the University of Michigan Law School , Sutherland established a legal practice in Provo, Utah , and won election to the Utah State Senate . Sutherland won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1900 and to the U.S. Senate in 1904. As a member of Congress , Sutherland supported several progressive policies but generally aligned with the party's conservative wing. He won re-election in 1910 but was defeated in the 1916 election by Democrat William H. King .

Sutherland made up part of the "Four Horsemen ", a group of conservative justices that often voted to strike down New Deal legislation. He retired from the Supreme Court in 1938, and was succeeded by Stanley Forman Reed . Sutherland wrote the Court's majority opinion in cases such as _Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. _, _Powell v. Alabama _, _Carter v. Carter Coal Co. _, _Adkins v. Children's Hospital _, _Blockburger v. United States _, and _U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. _.

Early life

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Sutherland was born on March 25, 1862, in Stony Stratford , Buckinghamshire, England, to a Scottish father, Alexander George Sutherland, and an English mother, Frances (née Slater). A recent convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , Alexander moved the family to the Utah Territory in the summer of 1863 and initially settled his family in Springville, Utah , but moved to Montana and prospected for a few years before moving his family back to Utah Territory in 1869, where he pursued a number of different occupations. In the 1870s, the Sutherland family left the Church, with George remaining unbaptized.

At the age of 12, the need to help his family financially forced Sutherland to leave school and take a job, first as a clerk in a clothing store and then as an agent of the Wells Fargo Company . However, Sutherland aspired to a higher education, and in 1879, he had saved enough to attend Brigham Young Academy . There, he studied under Karl G. Maeser , who proved an important influence in his intellectual development, most notably by introducing Sutherland to the ideas of Herbert Spencer , which would form an enduring part of Sutherland's philosophy. After graduating in 1881, Sutherland worked for the Rio Grande Western Railroad for a little over a year before moving to Michigan to enroll in the University of Michigan Law School , where he was a student of Thomas M. Cooley . Sutherland left school before earning his law degree.

Early career

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After admission to the Michigan bar, he married Rosamond Lee in 1883, and produced two daughters and a son. Afterwards, Sutherland moved back to Utah Territory, where he joined his father (who had also become a lawyer) in a partnership in Provo . In 1886, they dissolved their partnership and Sutherland formed a new one with Samuel R. Thurman , a future chief justice of the Utah Supreme Court . Their partnership later included Edgar A. Wedgwood who served as adjutant general of the Utah National Guard . After running unsuccessfully as the Liberal Party candidate for mayor of Provo, Sutherland moved to Salt Lake City in 1893. There, he joined one of the state's leading law firms, and the following year was one of the organizers of the Utah State Bar Association . In 1896, he was elected as a Republican to the new Utah State Senate , where he served as chairman of the senate's Judiciary Committee and sponsored legislation granting powers of eminent domain to mining and irrigation companies.

In Congress

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In 1900, Sutherland received the Republican nomination as the party's candidate for Utah's seat in the United States House of Representatives . In the subsequent election, Sutherland narrowly defeated the Democratic incumbent (and his former law partner), William H. King , by 241 votes out of over 90,000 cast. He went on to serve as a Representative in the 57th Congress , where he fought to maintain the tariff on sugar and was active in both Indian affairs and legislation addressing t

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