Born on August 26, 1806, in Montgomery County, Tennessee,[1] Humphreys was the son of attorney and judge Parry Wayne Humphreys and his wife Mary West. His father later served on the State Supreme Court, was elected to one term in Congress, and served nearly two decades on the state judicial circuit.
Humphreys was educated privately and attended the law department of Transylvania University.[1] Failing to graduate due to ill health,[2] he read law with an established firm in 1828.[1] He passed the bar and entered private practice in Clarksville, Tennessee from 1828 to 1829.[1]
Humphreys was nominated by President Franklin Pierce on March 24, 1853, to a joint seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee vacated by Judge Morgan Welles Brown.[3][1] He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 26, 1853, and received his commission the same day.[1] During the American Civil War, his service terminated on June 26, 1862, due to impeachment, conviction, and removal from office for support of the Confederacy.[1]
Impeachment, conviction and removal from office
Humphreys served as a Judge of the Confederate District Court for the District of Tennessee from 1861 to 1865.[1]
On May 19, 1862, the United States House of Representatives voted to impeach Humphreys on the following charges: publicly calling for secession; giving aid to an armed rebellion; conspiring with Jefferson Davis; serving as a Confederate judge; confiscating the property of Military Governor Andrew Johnson and United States Supreme Court Justice John Catron; and imprisoning a Union sympathizer with "intent to injure him."[2][4][5]
On June 26, 1862, the United States Senate began the trial of the impeachment in his absence and later that day unanimously convicted him of all charges presented, except that of confiscating the property of Andrew Johnson.[2] Humphreys was removed from office and barred from holding office under the United States for life. He held his Confederate judgeship until the end of the Civil War.[1]
Later career and death
Following the end of the American Civil War, Humphreys resumed private practice in Nashville from 1866 to 1882.[1] In later life, Humphreys argued for the prohibition of alcohol and wrote several books.[2] He died on October 16, 1882, in Nashville.[1]
Family
Humphreys' father, Parry Wayne Humphreys, was an attorney, judge who served on the state Supreme Court and nearly two decades in the state judiciary, and one term as United States Representative from Tennessee.[2]
^ abcdeSturgis, Amy H. "West H. Humphreys". The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture. Tennessee Historical Society and the University of Tennessee Press. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
^"Judge West Hughes Humphreys". United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
^Aynes, Richard L. (1993). "The Impeachment and Removal of Tennessee Judge West Humphreys". Georgia Journal of Southern Legal History. 2: 71–98.
^Hall, Kermit L. (1975). "West H. Humphreys and the Crisis of the Union". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 34: 48–69.
^"John W. Morton Passes Away in Shelby". The Tennessean. November 21, 1914. pp. 1–2. Retrieved September 25, 2016 – via Newspapers.com. To Captain Morton came the peculiar distinction of having organized that branch of the Ku Klux Klan which operated in Nashville and the adjacent territory, but a more signal honor was his when he performed the ceremonies which initiated Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest into the mysterious ranks of the Ku Klux Klan.
Further reading
Robinson, William M., Justice in Grey: A History of the Judicial System of the Confederate States (Cambridge (MA), 1941)
