CHOATE, JOSEPH HODGES

CHOATE, JOSEPH HODGES

Joseph Hodges Choate was a popular lawyer in New York in the late 1800s. Choate distinguished himself by his exceptional career before the bar, his accomplishments as ambassador to the Court of St. James’s (an ambassador to England), his dedication to public service, and his sharp wit and clever afterdinner speeches.

Choate was born January 24, 1832, in Salem, Massachusetts, the fifth of six children and the youngest of four boys in a family with an established heritage. His father, Dr. George Choate, was a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School and was one of Salem’s most distinguished physicians. Choate was also the cousin of Congressman RUFUS CHOATE, who was just beginning his second term when Choate was born.

Continuing the family tradition, Choate
attended Harvard with his three brothers. He
went on to Harvard Law School, graduating in
1855. Choate then left New England to pursue a
career in New York. With the help of a letter
from Rufus Choate to WILLIAM M. EVARTS (who
would become SECRETARY OF STATE for President
RUTHERFORD B. HAYES from 1877 to 1881),
Choate joined the law office of Butler, Evarts,
and Southmayd.

Choate’s skills as an orator made him a formidable
litigator. He appeared in hundreds of
cases covering a wide range of controversies.
One of the most notorious of these cases was the
prosecution of William Marcy (“Boss”) Tweed.
Tweed, elected to the New York State Senate in
1868, headed TAMMANY HALL, a corrupt political
organization in New York City that was controlled
by the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. In 1871
Choate was appointed to the committee that
eventually charged Tweed with embezzling
funds from the city treasury.

Many of Choate’s cases involved matters of
national importance and were appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court. Choate unsuccessfully
fought Kansas’s liquor prohibition in Mugler v.
Kansas, 123 U.S. 623, 8 S. Ct. 273, 31 L. Ed. 205
(1887), and anti-Chinese legislation in Fong v.
United States, 149 U.S. 698, 13 S. Ct. 1016, 37 L.
Ed. 905 (1893). He successfully appealed claims
of certain Native Americans that the government
had reneged on a treaty and deprived them
of their land in New York Indians v. United States,
170 U.S. 1, 18 S. Ct. 531, 42 L. Ed. 927 (1898). In
the landmark case POLLOCK V. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO., 157 U.S. 429, 15 S. Ct. 673, 39 L. Ed. 759 (1895), reh’g granted, 158 U.S. 601, 15 S. Ct. 912, 39 L. Ed. 1108 (1895), overruled by South Carolina v. Baker, 485 U.S. 505, 108 S. Ct. 1355,
99 L. Ed. 2d 592 (1988), Choate won a constitutional challenge to an INCOME TAX act of 1894.
In his winning argument, Choate said, “The act
. . . is communistic in its purposes and tendencies,
and is defended here upon principles as
communistic, socialistic—what should I call
them—populistic as ever have been addressed to
any political assembly in the world.”
Choate’s prominence as an attorney
attracted the attention of the White House and
in January 1899, President WILLIAM MCKINLEY
appointed Choate ambassador to the Court of
St. James’s, in England. As ambassador Choate
negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which
allowed the U.S. government to build and operate
the Panama Canal. Choate was also instrumental
in gaining an “open door” to China, and
he resolved a controversy over Samoa with Germany
and the United Kingdom. In 1907 Choate
headed the delegation from the United States at
the International Peace Conference at The
Hague.

Choate supported many charitable causes.
He was president of the New York State Charities
Aid Association and of the Association of
the Blind. Choate was a member of the Provisional
Committee of 1869 which was appointed
to establish the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
He continued his relationship with the museum
as one of its incorporators and as a member of
the executive committee of the board of trustees.
He was also an incorporator and officer of the
Museum of Natural History.

Choate’s successes were due in part to his
talents as a public speaker.His keen intellect and
engaging speaking style combined with his sense
of humor to captivate audiences. No lawyer of
the New York bar was in as much demand at
public functions. He had speaking engagements
before the New England Society, the Union
League Club, and the Century Association
before and during his presidency of these societies,
at dinners and receptions of the bar association,
and at innumerable philanthropic events.
Shortly after Choate had passed his eighty-fifth
birthday he was appointed chairman of a committee
of citizens to receive French and British
commissioners on a visit to the United States.
He was in poor health but he survived long
enough to fulfill his duties. Choate died May 14,
1917, in New York City.
Choate once described the path of his career
as follows:
To be a priest . . . in the temple of justice, to
serve at her altar and aid in her administration,
to maintain and defend those inalienable
rights of life, liberty, and property upon
which the safety of society depends, to succor
the oppressed and to defend the innocent, to
maintain constitutional rights against all violations,
. . . to rescue the scapegoat and restore
him to his proper place in the world—all this
seemed to me to furnish a field worthy of any
man’s ambition.

FURTHER READINGS
Hicks, Frederick C., ed. 1926. Arguments and Addresses of Joseph Hodges Choate.

Lasson, Kenneth. “Lawyering Askew: Excesses in the Pursuit of Fees and Justice.” Boston University Law Review 74.

Martin, Edward S. 1921. The Life of Joseph Hodges Choate. Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Scribner.

Simmons, Daniel L. 1987. “The Tax Reform Act of 1986: An Overview.” Brigham Young University Law Review.

Strong, Theron G. 1917. Joseph Choate: New Englander, New Yorker, Lawyer, Ambassador. New York: Dodd, Mead.