Career
After practicing in Franklin in the middle of the state, Gamble became prosecuting attorney of the Circuit Court of Howard County, Missouri. In 1824 Frederick Bates appointed him as secretary of state and he moved to the capital, then located at St. Charles, Missouri.
When the capital was moved to Jefferson City, Gamble returned to St. Louis in 1826, settling in the major city of the state. He set up a private legal practice there. Although a slaveholder, he defended slaves in court. He became a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported the resettlement of free blacks in Liberia.
In 1846, Gamble was elected to the Missouri Supreme Court by the Whig Party, the first justice from this party. He was quickly elected chief justice, on a rotating term. Though a slaveholder, he dissented in the Missouri Supreme Court decision of the Dred Scott v. Emerson case. He maintained that Scott was free because he had been held illegally as a slave while resident in a free state, according to the 28-year-old precedent set in the 1824 ruling of "once free always free" in Winny v. Whitesides.
Gamble resigned his judgeship in 1855 due to failing health, and in 1858 moved to Pennsylvania.
Read more about this topic: Hamilton Rowan Gamble
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