Early Life and Legal Career
Henry Brush was born in Dutchess County, New York, the youngest son of Lemuel and Mary (Per Lee) Brush. Henry completed preparatory studies and then studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1803 and commenced practice in Chillicothe, Ohio. For a time, he was in partnership with his brother, Platt Brush. He married Frances and seems to have had several daughters. Another source says he never married. Henry was described by contemporaries as a tall, thin man with a Roman nose and a highly nervous temperament.
In December 1805, Henry Brush testified with other lawyers before the Ohio Senate in the impeachment trial of Judge William Irwin, a circuit rider who had missed a number of courts held within his circuit. Irwin was removed from office. In December 1807, Henry Brush represented Nathaniel Massie who was contesting the election of Return J. Meigs, Jr., as governor of Ohio. Brush appeared as counsel before the Ohio House of Representatives and then in joint session with the Ohio Senate. Meigs, who was at the time serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, was ruled ineligible to hold the office of governor due to residency requirements.
In August 1807, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled in Rutherford v. M'Faddon that the law passed by the legislature was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Samuel H. Huntington and Judge George Tod had written the opinions supporting the ruling, essentially a restatement of the federal holding of Marbury v. Madison. The Ohio house impeached Judge Tod on the grounds that he was usurping the power of the legislature. (Huntington, who had run for governor, was spared impeachment out of respect for his office.) At his Senate trial, Judge Tod was defended by William Creighton, Jr., Henry Brush and two others. The vote for conviction was one shy of the two-thirds required. One of those voting for conviction was impeached Judge William Irwin, now elected a member of the Senate.
Henry Brush served as the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in the State of Ohio from 1813 to 1817, having previously served as Grand Secretary.
Read more about this topic: Henry Brush
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life, legal and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“The true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood.”
—Alice Meynell (1847–1922)
“In the course of the actual attainment of selfish ends—an attainment conditioned in this way by universality—there is formed a system of complete interdependence, wherein the livelihood, happiness, and legal status of one man is interwoven with the livelihood, happiness, and rights of all. On this system, individual happiness, etc. depend, and only in this connected system are they actualized and secured.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“They want to play at being mothers. So let them. Expressing tenderness in their own way will not prevent girls from enjoying a successful career in the future; indeed, the ability to nurture is as valuable a skill in the workplace as the ability to lead.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)