Thomas M. Cooley

Thomas McIntyre Cooley (January 6, 1824 – September 12, 1898) was the 25th Justice and a Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, between 1864 and 1885. Born in Attica, New York, he was father to Charles Cooley, a distinguished American sociologist. He was a charter member and first chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission (1887).

Cooley was appointed Dean of the University of Michigan Law School, a position he held until 1883.

Thomas M. Cooley Law School of Lansing, Michigan, founded 1972 and now affiliated with the Western Michigan University since 2014, was named after Justice Cooley to recognize his extensive contribution to American jurisprudence. Also, Cooley High School in Detroit and Cooley Elementary School in Waterford, Michigan are commemoratively named in Justice Cooley's honor.

Justice Cooley is recognized by the State Bar of Michigan as a "Michigan Legal Milestone".

Early life and career

In 1824, Thomas Cooley was born in Attica, New York, to farmers Thomas Cooley and Rachel Hubbard. He attended Attica Academy and took an interest in the law and literary pursuits. In 1842, he studied law under Theron Strong, who had just completed a term as a U.S. Representative for New York to the House of Representatives of the United States Congress. The next year, he moved to Adrian, Michigan and continued to study law. By 1846, he was admitted to the Michigan bar and married Mary Horton.

In addition to his small legal practice, Cooley was active in other intellectual and political pursuits. He wrote poems criticizing slavery and celebrating the European revolutions of 1848, edited pro-Democratic newspapers, and founded the Michigan branch of the Free Soil Party in 1848. By 1856, he became a Republican. In the 1850s, he slowly built his professional reputation. He was compiler of Michigan statutes and a reporter for the Michigan Supreme Court. In 1859 he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan and became one of the University of Michigan Law School's first professors. He would go on to play a major role in the development of the university and the Law School, serving on faculty until 1884, including a long stint as the law school's dean from 1871 until 1883.

in 1864, Cooley was elected to the Supreme Court of Michigan, and served as the chief justice for 20 years. Politically, he remained a Republican, and even considered running for Congress in 1872. However, he maintained a certain independence politically, and bolted from the Republican party as a mugwump to support Grover Cleveland in 1884, and later in 1894. This independence may have cost him an appointment to the US Supreme Court.History and Traditions: Thomas M Cooley
www.law.umich.edu Retrieved January 8, 2012. However, he was rewarded politically when in 1887 when President Cleveland nominated him to the Interstate Commerce Commission, one of the first independent agencies of the federal government.

With Mary Horton he had six children, including Charles Cooley, a distinguished American sociologist, and Thomas Benton Cooley, a noted pediatrician.

Academic works and treatises

Many of the original tomes memorializing and comprising Cooley's scholarly works are preserved and on display in the Thomas M. Cooley Law School Strosacker Law Library.

''A Treatise on the Law of Torts or the Wrongs Which Arise Independently of Contract''

In 1878, Cooley completed and published his work ''A Treatise on the Law of Torts or the Wrongs Which Arise Independently of Contract''. One edition of Cooley's treatise on the subject matter of tort law was published in Chicago by Callaghan and Company in 1907. A Students' Edition was edited by John Lewis, a legal scholar and contemporary of Cooley. Lewis also wrote ''A Treatise on the Law of Eminent Domain''. As a collegial work, Cooley's treatise on torts made extensive use of citations to case law.

''The General Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States of America''

Completed in March, 1880, while Dean of the University of Michigan, Cooley had published his treatise ''The General Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States of America''. One edition of Cooley's treatise on the subject matter of Constitutional law was published in Boston by Little, Brown and Company in 1891. A Second Edition of the work was completed by a legal scholar and contemporary of Cooley's, Alexis C. Angell, in August, 1891. A third edition was published in Boston by Little, Brown and Company in 1898.

''Constitutional Limitations''

In 1868 Cooley published ''A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations Which Rest Upon the Legislative Power of the States of the American Union'', in which he analysed the creation of state constitutions and the enactment of laws. It was probably the best-known legal treatise of its time. By 1890, the sixth edition was printed.

Collegial citation of Thomas M. Cooley's theories of law

Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution

Renowned Constitutional law scholar Edward S. Corwin wrote of the extranational judicial recognition (and, of course, that under the United States) of the implementation of, or concurrence with, Article IV, within which is the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the United States Constitution: " accordance with what is variously known as Conflict of Laws, Comity, or Private International Law, rights acquired under the laws or through the courts of one country may often receive recognition...in the courts of another country, and it is the purpose of .S. Const., Art. IV, Sec. 1to guarantee that this shall be the case among the States in certain instances." Corwin, or the editors of the 1978 Princeton University Press edition of ''The Constitution and What it Means Today'' thereinafter cited the Third Edition of Cooley's ''Principles of Constitutional Law''.

Establishment Clause of Amendment I of the United States Constitution

Corwin wrote, as to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (a clause contained within Amendment I), " hat_Justice_Story_believed_the_United_States_Congress_

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