Theophilus Parsons
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Theophilus Parsons (February 24, 1750Template:SndOctober 30, 1813) was an American jurist based in Massachusetts.
Biography
Born in Newbury, Massachusetts, to a clergyman father, Parsons was one of the early students at the Dummer Academy (now The Governor's Academy) before matriculating to Harvard College. He graduated in 1769, was a schoolmaster in Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) from 1770 to 1773; he studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1774. From 1787 to 1789, he tutored John Quincy Adams in law. In 1800, he moved to Boston.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Parsons served as chief justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts from 1806 until his death in Boston in 1813. In politics, he was active as one of the Federalist leaders in the state. He was a member of the Essex County convention of 1778—called to protest against the proposed state constitution—and as a member of the "Essex Junto" was probably the author of The Essex Result, which helped to secure the constitution's rejection at the polls.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1781.[1] He was also elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1813.[2]
Parsons was a member of the state constitutional convention of 1779–1780 and one of the committee of 26 who drafted the constitution. He was also a delegate to the state convention of 1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution. In 1792, he was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.[3] According to tradition, he was the author of the famous Conciliatory Resolutions, or proposed amendments to the constitution, which did much to win over Samuel Adams and John Hancock to ratification. His Commentaries on the Laws of the United States (1836) contains some of his more important legal opinions.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
Parsons died in Boston in 1813. His son, also named Theophilus Parsons (1797–1882), was an author and a professor at Harvard.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
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Attribution:
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External links
- Brief biography at Harvard Square Library
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Template:Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Script error: No such module "Authority control".
- Pages with script errors
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- Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
- 1750 births
- 1813 deaths
- American legal scholars
- American Swedenborgians
- Chief justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
- Educators from Massachusetts
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Harvard College alumni
- Lawyers from Boston
- Massachusetts Federalists
- People from Newbury, Massachusetts
- The Governor's Academy alumni
- Candidates in the 1792 United States elections