Early Life
Born in Elkton, Kentucky, the son of Dr. John Oliver and Ellen (née Reeves) McReynolds. His parents were both members of the fundamentalist Campbellite sect of the Disciples of Christ Church. He graduated from the prestigious Green River Academy and later matriculated at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, graduating with status as a valedictorian in 1882. At the University of Virginia School of Law, Professor John B. Minor – "a man of stern morality and firm conservative convictions" – profoundly influenced McReynolds. McReynolds received his law degree in 1884.
He was secretary to Senator Howell Edmunds Jackson, who later became an associate justice himself. McReynolds practiced law in Nashville and served for three years as an Adjunct professor of Commercial Law, Insurance, and Corporations at Vanderbilt University Law School, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1896 as a "Goldbug" Democrat. Under Theodore Roosevelt he was Assistant Attorney General from 1903 to 1907, when he resigned to take up private practice in New York City.
Read more about this topic: James Clark Mc Reynolds
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