cated, and before he was of age
was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. He gradually became one of the
leading American lawyers, and in 1851-1857 was a member of the supreme
court of Pennsylvania (chief-justice 1851-1854). In 1857 he entered
President Buchanan's cabinet as attorney-general of the United States.
In this capacity he successfully contested the validity of the
"California land claims"--claims to about 19,000 sq. m. of land,
fraudulently alleged to have been granted to land-grabbers and others by
the Mexican government prior to the close of the Mexican War. From the
17th of December 1860 to the 4th of March 1861 he was secretary of
state. Perhaps the most influential of President Buchanan's official
advisers, he denied the constitutionality of secession, and urged that
Fort Sumter be properly reinforced and defended. "For ... the vigorous
assertion at last in word and in deed that the United States is a
nation," says James Ford Rhodes, "for pointing out the way in which the
authority of the Federal government might be exercised without
infringing on the rights of the states, the gratitude of the American
people is due to Jeremiah S. Black." He became reporter to the Supreme
Court of the United States in 1861, but after publishing the reports for
the years 1861 and 1862 he resigned, and devoted himself almost
exclusively to his private practice, appearing in such important cases
before the Supreme Court as the one known as _Ex-Parte Milligan_, in
which he ably defended the right of trial by jury, the McCardle case and
the _United States_ v. _Blyew et al_. After the Civil War he vigorously
opposed the Congressional plan of reconstructing the late Confederate
states, and himself drafted the message of President Johnson, vetoing
the Reconstruction Act of the 2nd of March 1867. Black was also for a
short time counsel for President Andrew Johnson, in his trial on the
article of impeachment, before the United States Senate, and for William
W. Belknap (1829-1890), secretary of war from 1869 to 1876, who in 1876
was impeached on a charge of corruption; and with others he represented
Samuel J. Tilden during the contest for the presidency between Tilden
and Hayes (see ELECTORAL COMMISSION). He died at Brockie, Pennsylvania,
on the 19th of August 1883.

See _Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black, with a Biographical
Sketch_ (New York, 1885), by his son, C.F. Black.

BLACK, JOSEPH (1728-1799), Scottish chemis