Woolsey was born on January 3, 1877, in Aiken, South Carolina, to William Walton Woolsey and Katherine Buckingham Convers Woolsey. Woolsey was a descendant of George (Joris) Woolsey, one of the earliest settlers of New Amsterdam, and Thomas Cornell (settler).[2] One member of his family graduated from Yale University in 1709; his granduncle Theodore Dwight Woolsey was president of that university from 1846 to 1872; and cousin Theodore Salisbury Woolsey was a professor of international law there.[3] His half-sister, Gamel Woolsey, was a noted poet and novelist.
After completing law school he entered private practice in New York City from 1901 to 1929.[4] In addition, he continued his affiliation with Columbia after receiving his degree, teaching equity and serving as a member and chairman of the law school's Board of Visitors. He also served Harvard Law School on its Advisory Commission on Research in International Law. Woolsey was admiralty counsel to the French High Commission in New York City, and a member of a New York admiralty law firm from 1920 until his appointment to the bench.[5]
Federal judicial service
Woolsey was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, February 28, 1929, but the United States Senate did not vote on the nomination and it expired on March 3, 1929, with the end of Coolidge's presidency.[3] Woolsey was renominated by President Herbert Hoover on April 18, 1929, to a new seat in the Southern District which had been authorized by 45 Stat. 1317.[4] He was confirmed by the Senate on April 29, 1929, and received his commission the same day.[1]
He authored several important decisions on freedom of expression. In United States v. One Obscene Book Entitled "Married Love" he found that a work by a physician on enhancing marital sexual relations was not obscene.[6] In a similar case, United States v. One Book, Entitled "Contraception", he held that a book containing information on birth control was not obscene or immoral, and therefore not subject to confiscation.[7]
Woolsey also invalidated Executive Order 6102, an Executive Order signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates". His holding was on the technical grounds that the order was signed by the President, not the Secretary of the Treasury as required,[11] and forced the Roosevelt administration to issue a new order signed by the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr.
Judge Woolsey assumed senior status on December 31, 1943, due to disability.[4] He did not hear cases or participate in the business of the court after that date.[1]
Personal life
Woolsey died in New York on May 4, 1945. He was survived by his wife, the former Alice Bradford Bacon, whom he married in 1911, and by a son, John M. Woolsey Jr.[1][4]
^Younger, Irving, Ulysses in Court: The Litigation Surrounding the First Publication of James Joyce's Novel in the United States (Professional Education Group transcript of Younger speech).
