GRAY, HORACE
Horace Gray gained prominence as a Massachu-
setts jurist and a U.S. Supreme Court justice. In
his fifty-three-year career as a lawyer and judge,
Gray earned a reputation as an expert on LEGAL
HISTORY and precedent.
Gray was born in the prosperous Beacon
Hill neighborhood of Boston on March 24,
1828. His grandfather, WILLIAM GRAY, was a
prominent merchant and shipowner, and his
father, Horace Gray, was a successful manufac-
turer. His uncle, Francis Calley Gray, gained
fame for discovering the original Liberties of the
Massachusetts Colony in New England, the first
constitution of the colony, which was drawn up
by NATHANIEL WARD and adopted in 1641.
Gray attended Harvard College, in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. In 1848 he entered Har-
vard Law School; he received his law degree one
year later. After two years of working in various
law offices, Gray opened his own firm in Boston,
where he practiced law until 1864. In addition to
practicing law, Gray worked as reporter and edi-
tor of the Massachusetts Reports, a collection of
court opinions and commentary on Massachu-
setts case law.
The position of reporter of the Massachusetts
Reports traditionally led to a seat on the state
supreme court, and that tradition played out for
Gray. In 1864 he was named to the Supreme
Judicial Court of Massachusetts by Governor
John A. Andrew. At age thirty-six, Gray was the
youngest appointee in the history of that court.
As a justice, Gray was formal and stern. He
required conservative dress in his court, and he
lectured lawyers on their conduct.He demanded
that attorneys arrive prepared, and he asked fre-
quent questions from the bench. Gray’s opin-
ions were thorough and well documented. In
1873 Gray assumed the position of chief justice
of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
In 1881 President JAMES GARFIELD was
looking for a nominee for the U.S. Supreme
Court, to replace the ailing justice NATHAN CLIF-
FORD. Garfield was considering Gray and asked
for copies of his opinions. Considering such
self-promotion unseemly, Gray refused to send
anything to Garfield. After Garfield’s death in
September 1881, Senator George F.Hoar recom-
mended Gray to the new president, CHESTER A.
ARTHUR, and Arthur nominated Gray as Clif-
ford’s replacement.
Gray authored many opinions on important
issues of the day, including cases involving
industry, immigration, and state-federal rela-
tions. One lasting opinion written by Gray
involved the power of the federal government to
issue paper money. In Juilliard v. Greenman, 110
U.S. 421, 4 S. Ct. 122, 28 L. Ed. 204 (1884), the
High Court established that the United States,
through Congress, had the power to issue paper
money against its own credit during times of
peace as well as times of war.
The Juilliard opinion revealed Gray’s strong
nationalist sentiment, which became a hallmark
of Gray’s service on the Court. Gray tended to
promote the rights of the United States in its
own endeavors and in its relations with other
countries. He led the Court in upholding a fed-
eral law limiting the immigration of Chinese
into the United States (Nishimura Ekiu v. United
States, 142 U.S. 651, 12 S. Ct. 336, 35 L. Ed. 1146
[1892]). In Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149
U.S. 698, 13 S. Ct. 1016, 37 L. Ed. 905 (1893),
Gray dismissed the notion that resident ALIENS
could claim the protection of the U.S. Constitu-
tion. Gray also wrote the opinion in Hilton v.
Guyot, 159 U.S. 113, 16 S. Ct. 139, 40 L. Ed. 95
(1895), in which the Court held that the United
States did not have to recognize judgments
obtained in France, because France did not rec-
ognize judgments obtained in the United States.
Gray never attained the legendary status
enjoyed by some Supreme Court justices, per-
haps because of his unwillingness to stray
beyond the bounds of precedent and author
far reaching opinions that change the course of
the law.
Gray died September 15, 1902, in Nahant,
