MIFFED AT THE PRESS: “I AM A LITTLE MAD”

JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. Autograph Letter Signed to Amzi Dodd, Litchfield, CT, 20 June 1891. 3 pages, 8¼" x 5¼", with original envelope.

A prominent New Jersey attorney, Joseph Bradley was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Ulysses Grant in 1870, and he served until his death in 1892. A jurist of strong intellect, notable for his “craftsmanship and the marshalling of legal principles in reasoned opinions,” Bradley “surpassed all but a handful of judges who have sat upon the Court” (Friedman, pp. 1181, 1200). He generally supported national rights and federal power, although he wrote the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) which struck down the 1875 Civil Rights Act. Bradley also served on the special commission which decided the disputed Presidential election of 1877, and he cast the tie-breaking votes that gave the victory to Rutherford B. Hayes.

Here, Bradley complains about the inattention of the press to new developments in the federal judiciary. The Judiciary Act of 1891 had just created the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals to hear most appeals of lower court decisions. Of the nine circuit courts established then, the Third Circuit included New Jersey, and it was officially launched in a special ceremony just days before Bradley wrote this letter.

“New Jersey...is in the Third Circuit of the United States Judicial organization – at all events the district judge for the district of N. Jersey attended the organization of the Court of Appeals of the circuit on Tuesday last,” Bradley notes. “Newark is the most important city in the state & district, in population, wealth & juridical importance. Newark has an influential newspaper, called The Daily Advertiser, in which I formerly had a representative interest, & took a hand occasionally upon the editorial helm. – Yet, a reader of the Newark Advertiser would hardly know that on Tuesday last a very important event took place in the judicial history of the third Circuit.

“I do not complain that no notice was taken of my own part in the ceremonies of organizing the new court,” Bradley states, “but I do think that the public & the bar of Newark, & New Jersey were entitled to have something more than a line about the court and its proceedings. I do not know the acting editor, but it seems to me that he has a poor appreciation of what is due to the Federal Judiciary, & to the interest that New Jersey has in its organization and proceedings.

“I enclose some clippings from the Philadelphia papers,” Bradley adds. “Perhaps, if brought to the Editor’s attention, he might deem them of some account.” He has signed, “Jos. P. Bradley,” but then has added a lengthy postscript: “One thing that makes me very distrustful about myself is the fact that I have never, or rarely, been noticed in New Jersey, by its press or its institutions – though coming from that state. I think that, now, I had rather not be – If this observation is an evidence of weakness, please put it down to my debit account. I am a little mad.”

Bradley’s correspondent, Amzi Dodd, was a leading New Jersey attorney who at this date was president of the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company.

The letter is in very good condition. It is accompanied by the original envelope, imprinted “Supreme Court of the United States,” at the upper left and addressed by Bradley; the envelope is a bit worn.

On Bradley, see Leon Friedman, “Joseph P. Bradley,” in Friedman & Israel, eds., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court 1789-1978, volume II, pages 1181-1200.

An unusually substantive and revealing letter. $500.00

 

 

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