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West Hughes Humphreys was born August 26, 1806 in Clarksville, Tennessee, the son of
Parry Wayne Humphreys and Mary (West) Humphreys. His father was a
successful lawyer in Clarksville and served intermittently for twenty-four years as a judge of the lower state courts. He also served a single term
in the Thirteenth Congress during the War of 1812.
West Humphreys obtained his general education in the schools of
Montgomery County, Tennessee. He studied law in his father's office in Nashville,
Tennessee and then entered Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky,
but returned home when his health failed. He was licensed to practice law
in 1828.
Ten years before, the region between the Tennessee and
Mississippi Rivers was opened to settlement by the treaty with the Chickasaw
Indians, and Humphreys moved to Somerville in the new county of Fayette in the
"Western District." He commenced his practice of law as a partner in the firm
of Cowan & Humphreys. He was elected as a delegate from Fayette County to the
state constitutional convention of 1834.
As a member of the 1834 constitutional convention, Humphreys led the movement which
removed the power from the Tennessee General Assembly to elect for life members of county
courts, sheriffs, trustees, coroners and other local officials. Contending that election
of such officials by popular vote of the people would "call forth the best
talents" and improve the quality of office holders, he succeeded in writing into the
new Tennessee Constitution the right of voters to elect justices of the peace, sheriffs,
trustees, registers, and other public officials for specific terms.
In 1835, Humphreys was unsuccessful as an anti-Jackson candidate for governor--the
first from Western Tennessee to run. According to historian Paul Bergeron, Humphreys's "purpose in
seeking the state's highest office remains a mystery."x (Paul
H. Bergeron, Antebellum Politics in Tennessee (Lexington:
University of Kentucky, 1982), 46.)When
he was elected Attorney-General of Tennessee and reporter of
the decisions of the Tennessee Supreme Court, he moved to Nashville. He served
in both capacities for eleven years and distinguished himself by editing the
eleven volume Reports
of Cases . . . in the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 1839 to 1851x (11 vols., 1841-1851;
cited as 1-11 Humphreys). At the expiration of his second term, Humphreys returned to private practice. He was
soon appointed United States District Judge of the three districts of Tennessee by
President Franklin Pierce and commissioned March 26, 1853.
Judge Humphreys supported secession, and after Tennessee seceded from the Union,
he accepted an appointment as a
Confederate district judge without resigning his appointment to the U. S.
District Court for the District of Tennessee. Informed of the
situation, the U. S. House of Representatives on January 8, 1862, authorized an inquiry. Following an
investigation, the judiciary committee recommended his impeachment, and on May
6, the House
unanimously voted to impeach Humphreys. On May 19, it adopted seven impeachment articles,
including the charges that he had publicly called for succession, given aid
for the armed rebellion, conspired with Jefferson Davis, served as a judge for
the Confederacy and acting in that capacity, ruled for the confiscation of the
property of Military Governor
Andrew
Johnson and U. S. Supreme Court Justice
John Catron.
Judge Humphreys could not be served personally with the impeachment articles because he had
fled Union territory. He neither appeared at his Senate trial nor contested the charges.
In a one-day trial on June 26, the Senate convicted Humphreys on six of the seven counts,
with
votes ranging from 28-10 to 39-0. By unanimous votes it then removed him from office and
barred him from holding future office in the United States government. In the process,
Congress broadened the grounds for impeachment which led in part to the proceedings
against President Johnson in 1867.
Judge Humphreys held court in Knoxville as a Confederate judge until the city was
captured by Federal forces in 1863. In 1864, he was captured at Brownsburgh, Alabama, and
exchanged as a prisoner of war the following month. In September, 1865, he took the oath of
allegiance to the United States and President Andrew Johnson granted his petition.
Although he abandoned political life after the war he remained active in his
profession. With his estate depleted by the war, he returned to private practice and
directed his energies to the temperance movement. His publications included
Suggestions on the Subject of Bank Charters (1859), Some Suggestions on
the Subject of Monopolies and Special Charters (1859), and An Address
on the Use of Alcoholic Liquors and the Consequences (1879). On October
16, 1882, he died at the age of seventy-seven
at the residence of his son-in-law near Nashville. |
