History Shows 1881 Was a Very Important Year
November 1, 2015 I Tennessee Bar Journal I William L. Harbison
In the year 1881,
- Kansas became the first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages,
- Sherlock Holmes had his first case with Dr. Watson (“A Study in Scarlet”),
- the Barnum & Bailey Circus was organized,
- the American Red Cross was established by Clara Barton,
- President Garfield was shot by an assassin,
- Booker T. Washington established the Tuskegee Institute, and
- Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were involved in the gunfight at the OK Corral.
1881 was also the year that the Tennessee Bar Association was formed.
Just a few years earlier, in 1872, Grafton Green was born in Lebanon, Tennessee, into a distinguished family of lawyers. His grandfather, Nathan Green Sr., was a justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. His father, Nathan Green Jr., was a long-time professor at the Cumberland School of Law in Lebanon.
Few families have had a greater impact on the development of legal education and common law in Tennessee. Grafton Green would go on to graduate from Cumberland and was admitted to the bar. He was first elected to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1910 and served there until 1947. The Scopes case, about which I wrote previously in this column, came to the Supreme Court in 1927, and Green wrote the opinion upholding the law against teaching evolution but dismissing the conviction of Scopes on a technicality.
Cumberland School of Law was Tennessee’s first law school, having been established in 1847. Vanderbilt Law School began classes in 1874, and the University of Tennessee College of Law in 1890. In the 20th century, Nashville School of Law was founded in 1911, the University of Memphis Law School in 1962, and the Duncan School of Law and Belmont University Law School came in more recent years. Cumberland moved to Birmingham, Alabama, in 1961 where it continues to graduate law students. Tennessee’s six other law schools continue in existence as well.
The late 19th century was a time in which legal education began to resemble the structure and curriculum that we know today. By the time the Tennessee Bar Association was organized in 1881, a tradition of excellence was already forming in both legal education and in the courts of Tennessee. Grafton Green and his father and grandfather are only a few of the many outstanding jurists and scholars produced by Tennessee law schools.
The Tennessee Bar Association has developed out of, and alongside, the courts and law schools of our state. There is a long tradition of cooperation among all of these law-related institutions. None of us really needs to be reminded that there are many changes happening in the 21st century, including changes for the legal profession. The markets for legal services, and the methods of delivering those services, are definitely in flux. I look forward to reporting more about these changes, and the role of the Tennessee Bar Association in connection with those changes, in future columns.
