Texas v. White - The Missing Bonds, Political Fact Or Legal Fiction, Further Readings

court appellant appellees justices

Appellant

State of Texas

Appellees

George W. White, John Chiles, et al.

Appellant's Claim

That securities sold to the appellees by a Confederate military board were the property of the state of Texas and should be returned.

Chief Lawyers for Appellant

R. T. Merrick, George W. Pascal

Chief Lawyers for Appellees

P. Phillips, J. M. Carlisle, S. S. Cox, J. W. Moore

Justices for the Court

Salmon Portland Chase (writing for the Court), Nathan Clifford, David Davis, Stephen Johnson Field, Samuel Nelson

Justices Dissenting

Robert Cooper Grier, Samuel Freeman Miller, Noah Haynes Swayne (James M. Wayne had died in office and had not been replaced)

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

12 April 1869

Decision

In favor of the state of Texas.

Significance

By declaring that the Confederate states had never legally been severed from the United States, the Court provided a legal basis for Reconstruction to proceed.

Related Cases

Luther v. Borden, 48 U.S. 1 (1849).
National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976).

Additional Topics

Texas v. White - The Missing Bonds

In the years immediately following the Civil War, debate was furious over what rights the states of the former Confederacy would retain or be forced to forfeit before they were reintegrated into the Union. The U.S. Supreme Court settled a fundamental part of this issue based on the result of a lawsuit over the unlikely matter of a bond transfer. On 1 January 1851, the U.S. government paid the stat…

Texas v. White - Political Fact Or Legal Fiction

The case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court on 5 February 1869 and was sufficiently complicated to take three days to argue. Nevertheless, the Court returned its decision relatively quickly on 12 April. By a 5-3 vote, the Court returned jurisdiction over the bonds to the state of Texas. The decision hinged on the nature of American statehood. Chief Justice Chase noted that a state was compr…

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