Tennessee’s Chancery Court is one of the attributes of our legal system that makes us special. 2017 is the 190th anniversary of Tennessee Chancery. Let us look back to its founding and three remarkable Tennesseans who brought it into being.

Governor William Carroll

Many consider William Carroll our greatest governor. One of his proudest achievements was the creation of Chancery Court. He viewed judicial reform as a “humanitarian issue,”[1] of which establishing a court devoted to equity’s fairness and protection of the weak and incompetent was critical. The birth of Chancery was also the “Business Governor’s”[2] response to a growing economy demanding a tribunal with expertise not only in land disputes but also in corporations, insurance, partnerships, receiverships, banking, trusts and fraud. In other words, business matters.

Carroll was born in Pennsylvania in 1788. At the age of 22, with little money and education, he moved to Nashville and opened a hardware store and nail factory, becoming a leading businessman and steamboat owner. Contemporaries commented on his charm, piercing blue eyes and skill as a dualist. With Andrew Jackson’s support, he rose to the rank of major-general of the Tennessee militia and served with courage in the War of 1812. Carroll was severely wounded at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and was a key leader at the Battle of New Orleans.[3]

When the economic panic of 1819 forced Carroll into bankruptcy, he entered politics and, in 1821, was elected governor. He would be reelected five times, serving as Tennessee’s chief executive longer than any other. During a time of depression, Carroll declared himself a foe of banks and forged a reputation as Tennessee’s “Reform Governor” and a true champion of the poor and powerless.[4]

Carroll brought business-like management to government, overhauled the system of taxation, vastly improved funding for public education and secured revision of the criminal code, making it more humane by eliminating harsh penalties, such as public degradation, and practices that amounted to torture, such as flogging and branding. The death penalty was abolished, except for first-degree murder, including the repeal of a statute authorizing death for a second conviction of theft of $10 or more. Imprisonment for debt was outlawed and Carroll built the first state penitentiary, a national model. He also constructed the state’s first mental hospital.[5]

Carroll “hammered away”[6] for judicial reform. He was aided by a report of the House Judiciary Committee declaring Tennessee’s clogged court system “the most expensive and least efficient of any in the United States.”[7] One of his most lasting achievements was adoption of a new constitution, which was more democratic and egalitarian, such as eliminating the property requirement to vote or hold office, and reconstructed the judiciary and made it more independent. The Constitution made the Supreme Court a true appellate court by eliminating its trial duties.[8] He also pushed through a bill to establish Chancery.[9]

On Dec. 14, 1827, the General Assembly convened in joint session to elect two chancellors.[10] Chancery’s Eastern Circuit would encompass East Tennessee and was bordered on the east by North Carolina and by the Cumberlands on the west. Chancery sessions would be held at Rogersville, Greeneville, Kingston, Carthage and McMinnville.[11] The Western Circuit was bordered by the crest of the Cumberlands on the east and the Mississippi on the west. Court convened at Franklin, Columbia, Charlotte, Jackson and Paris.[12] Each chancellor’s jurisdiction was statewide.[13]

The positions were eagerly sought after, but considering the immensity of the circuits, the travel (at least six months a year on horseback[14]), the poor accommodations and the broad duties, it was an awesome responsibility. The two men selected proved up to the task. “Now for the first time there was given an opportunity for the development of a symmetrical system of equity.”[15]

Chancellor Nathan Green

The “most solemn” and “majestic”[16] six-foot-six Nathan Green of Franklin County was elected to serve as Chancellor of East Tennessee. He was born in Virginia in 1792 and was first admitted to that state’s bar. Green soon relocated to Winchester, Tenn., and began a practice, but lost everything because of his gambling. Eventually he broke his gambling addiction. In 1826 he was elected to the State Senate, and his fellow legislators elected him chancellor the following year.[17]

In 1831 the General Assembly elected Green to the Supreme Court. Subsequently, Green, along with Justices William B. Turley and William B. Reese, laid much of the foundation of Tennessee law, and many consider their “joint tenure … the golden era of Tennessee jurisprudence.”[18]

Although known as a “stern and rational jurist”[19] who on the bench was “as impassable as a block of wood,”[20] he was also famous for his eloquence, compassion, ethics and passion for helping young lawyers. He served on the court until stepping down in 1852 to teach at Cumberland Law School in Lebanon, Tenn. He died in 1866 after rebuilding the school following the Civil War.[21]

Chancellor William E. Anderson

Tennessee needed someone of stamina to preside over the huge Western Circuit, and the legislature found that in the 36-year-old William E. Anderson of Davidson County. “His distinguishing characteristic was strength, both physical and mental.”[22] Born at Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1791, he migrated as a child with his family to Knox County in 1801. The law attracted Anderson and three of his five brothers.[23]

Anderson became a leading lawyer and was elected solicitor-general of the 4th District in 1817.[24] In 1825 he moved to Nashville and built a thriving practice with Felix Grundy.[25] Anderson was known not to prepare for trial, yet was powerful before juries because of his oratory and humor.[26] He was seen as having “few equals in the state as a lawyer.”[27] “Big Bill” stood six feet eight and had a muscular build.[28] His voice could be heard a great distance and he was called a “human volcano.”[29]

Chancellor Anderson would sit up late in taverns with attorneys singing tunes.[30] In the days of circuit riding lawyers and judges, a close relationship grew between the bench and bar as they managed to bring the law to an increasingly litigious society.[31]

In 1829 Anderson ran for the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by his old law partner, Felix Grundy.[32] In 1830 he resigned from Chancery and took a more active role in partisan politics. Some suggested that he had tired of circuit riding. By 1833 he was elected to the Tennessee House from Davidson County where he served until 1835.[33] Breaking from the Democrats, he became a flamboyant organizer of the new Whig Party. In 1837 he was elected to the State Senate.[34]

In 1839 Anderson opened a successful practice in Vicksburg.[35] Political enemies, such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Catron, charged that he had become an embarrassment to the Whigs and thus hustled from the state. Democrats also floated rumors that he would soon die “a drunkard and gambler.”[36] He did die in 1841.[37]

By 1834 Chancery’s caseload had grown to such an extent that the number of chancellors was increased to three, one for each Grand Division.[38]

As for Gov. Carroll, he died in 1844 and was interred at Nashville’s City Cemetery.[39] Perhaps his most enduring monument is Chancery Court: Tennessee’s fast-moving and usually jury-free court of business and fairness, made possible by Carroll’s compassion and vision, and made reality by the “vigor and special skill” of Chancellors Green and Anderson.[40]

Notes

1. Harriet Stern, “William Carroll” in Governors of Tennessee 136 (Charles Crawford, ed., 1979).
2. Id. at 119.
3. See id. at 119-28.
4. See id. at 128-33.
5. See id. at 134-136.
6. Robert White, ed., 2 Messages of the Governors of Tennessee 224 (1952).
7. Stern at 136.
8. See id. at 138.
9. Acts of Tenn., 1827, Ch. 17.
10. House Journal, 1827, 665; White at 224.
11. Russell Fowler, “A History of Chancery and Its Equity from Medieval England to Today’s Tennessee” in 48, No. 2 Tennessee Bar Journal 20, 24 (Feb. 2012).
12. Id.
13. Acts of Tenn., 1827, Ch. 17; Joshua Caldwell, Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Tennessee 164 (1898).
14. See Paul O’Neal, The Old West: The Frontiersmen 159 (1977).
15. Samuel C. Williams, “History of the Courts of Chancery of Tennessee,” 2 Tenn. L. Rev. 6, 18 (1924).
16. Henry Foote, The Bench and Bar of the South and Southwest 167 (1876).
17. See Caldwell at 139-41; Timothy Huebner, in A History of the Tennessee Supreme Court 71-72 (James Ely, Jr., ed., 2002).
18. Samuel Cole Williams, Beginnings of West Tennessee in the Land of the Chickasaw 217 (1930).
19. Huebner at 72.
20. Id.
21. See id. at 141-42.
22. Goodspeed General History of Tennessee 390 (1887).
23. See Caldwell at 249-52.
24. Id. at 249.
25. Id. at 250.
26. See John Trotwood Moore, IV Tennessee, The Volunteer State 1769-1923, at 20 (1923); Caldwell at 250.
27. Foote at 251.
28. See III Correspondence of James K. Polk 384 (Herbert Weaver, ed., 1975).
29. Foote at 82.
30. Id. at 83.
31. See Paul O’Neal, The Old West: The Frontiersmen 159 (1977).
32. See Moore at 19.
33. McBride at 16.
34. IV Correspondence of James K. Polk 111, n.4 (Herbert Weaver, ed., 1977).
35. See Caldwell at 250.
36. IV Correspondence of James K. Polk 431 (Letter from John Catron to Polk, April 28, 1838) (Herbert Weaver, ed., 1977).
37. McBride at 17.
38. Caldwell at 165.
39. See Stern at 143.
40. Williams, History of the Courts of Chancery of Tennessee at 18.

RUSSELL FOWLER is director of litigation and advocacy at Legal Aid of East Tennessee (LAET) and since 1999 has been adjunct professor of political science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He served as the law clerk to Chancellor C. Neal Small in Memphis and earned his law degree at the University of Memphis in 1987. Fowler is a regular columnist for the Tennessee Bar Journal, and has many other publications on law and legal history.