lemuel shaw

English - English

Definition of lemuel shaw in English English dictionary

born Jan. 9, 1781, Barnstable, Mass., U.S. died March 30, 1861, Boston, Mass. U.S. jurist. He was educated at Harvard University. In 1822 he drafted the first municipal charter for Boston virtually without precedents to guide him; it remained in effect until 1913. In 1830 he was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, where he served for 30 years. His rulings were formative in the development of both Massachusetts and national jurisprudence. In particular, his ruling in favour of a striking labour union (1842) provided the first major precedent for removing unions from the province of the law of conspiracy, and his decision upholding the city's segregated schools (1849) was later reflected in the "separate but equal" doctrine propounded by the Supreme Court of the United States in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), though it also led Massachusetts to pass the only 19th-century American desegregation law. His daughter married Herman Melville

Hyphenation

Le·mu·el shaw