Jacob McGavock Dickinson

DICKINSON, Jacob McGavock, lawyer and secretary of war, was born at Columbus, Lowndes co., Miss., Jan. 30, 1851, son of Henry and Anna (McGavock) Dickinson, and a descendant of Henry Dickinson, who came from England to Virginia in 1654. His father was an eminent lawyer of the Mississippi bar, a chancellor for many years, presidential elector, and one of the commissioners sent by his state to Delaware on the question of secession. He married a daughter of Jacob McGavock, whose mother was a daughter of Felix Grundy of Tennessee. The son passed his early youth in Columbus, Miss., and at the early age of fourteen volunteered and served under Gen. Ruggles in the operations about Columbus. After the war he removed to Nashville, Tenn., where he attended the public schools, the Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of Nashville, being graduated at the last in 1871. While taking a post-graduate course, he served as assistant professor of Latin at the university, and received the degree of A.M. in 1872. He then studied law at the Columbia law school. In the following year he entered the University of Leipzig, Germany, for the purpose of studying German, and took a course in Roman law and political economy. He also attended lectures at the Sorbonne, and at the Ecole du Droit in Paris. Returning to the United States, he was admitted to the bar in Nashville in 1874, and entered upon the practice of his profession. By special appointment in 1890 he served for several different periods on the Tennessee bench. many years took an active part in politics, being especially prominent during the bitter contest in Tennessee growing out of the state debt, and in 1882 was chairman o the state credit wing of the Democratic party. He was twice chairman of the committee of fifty of the Reform Association of Nashville, which in two bitterly fought contests completely overthrew the political bosses. In February, 1895, he was commission assistant attorney-general of the United States and served to the end of Pres. Cleveland's term. He was then made district attorney for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad Co. for Tennessee and northern Alabama, and also became a professor in the law school of Vanderbilt University. Having transferred his law practice to Chicago, Ill., although retaining his residence in Nashville, in 1899 Judge Dickinson became general solicitor of the Illinois Central Railroad Co., and two years later was made its general counsel. He defended the Illinois Central road in the litigation growing out of the employers' liability act, the trial of which was held before Judge William H. Taft in the sixth circuit, upon whom he made a strong impression by his legal attainments and methods of managing the case. Probably his most notable professiona service was as counsel for the United States in the Alaska bounda case before the arbitration tribunal in London in 1903, his associates being David T. Watson, Hannis Taylor and Charles P. Anderson. Judge Dickinson closed the argument, occupying five days, October 2–8. The masterful manner in which he used the maps, exhibits, and testimony submitted by Great, Britain to upset the British (or more accurately the Canadian) contentions was admired by all, and was frankly acknowledged by Great Britain. It was generally admitted that his argument was one of the effective instrumentalities which brought over Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, who presided at the tribunal, and won the case for the United States. In 1909 he was invited to enter Pres. Taft's cabinet as secretary, of war, an appointment that aroused considerable discussion in view of the fact that he was a life-long Democrat. Upon accepting the appointment Judge Dickinson announced that he had not changed his politics, but was still, as he always had been, a Democrat. “Having known me for a long time and intimately,” he said in a speech at the Iroquois Club, “and invi. conferred with southern men whose opinions he valued, he (Pres. Taft) came to the conclusion that my qualifications and my relations to the southern people were such as to justify putting me in his cabinet. Having accepted the position, I shall bring to the discharge of the duties of the office my best efforts, and shall, of course, carry out his policies. I cannot conceive that . . . can arise in connection with that office that will be incompatible with any views I have hitherto entertained. Certainly if such an occasion should arise, I would not embarrass, the president by retaining a position the duties of which I could not heartily discharge.” He was president of the American Bar Association in 1907–08, and is vice-president of the Society for the Promotion of International Arbitration organized in Chicago in 1904, a member of the Chicago, Onwentsia, Iroquois, Wayfarers, Cliff Dwellers and the Saddle and Cycle clubs, of Chicago. His summer home is the famous Helle Meade stock farm, formerly owned by Gen. William Hicks Jackson. Judge Dickinson was married, April 20, 1876, to Martha, daughter of John Maxwell Overton of Nashville, Tenn., and has three sons: John Overton, Henry, and Jacob McGavock Dickinson, Jr.

SOUCE: The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Supplement 1 p. 410-1