Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Parker, Joel (jurist)

PARKER, Joel, jurist, b. in Jaffrey, N. H., 25 Jan., 1795; d. in Cambridge, Mass., 17 Aug., 1875. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1811, and began the practice of law in Keene, N. H., in 1815. He was in the legislature in 1824-'6, appointed associate justice of the supreme court of New Hampshire in 1833, and became chief justice in 1836. In 1840 he was chairman of the committee to revise the laws of the state. In 1847-'57 he was professor of medical jurisprudence at Dartmouth, and from 1847 until his death he was professor of law at Harvard. His publications, exclusive of law reports and periodical essays, include an address on “Progress” (Hanover, N. H., 1840); “Daniel Webster as a Jurist,” an address to the Harvard law-school (Cambridge, Mass., 1853); “A Charge to the Grand Jury on the Uncertainty of Law” (1854); “The Non-Extension of Slavery” (1856); “Personal Liberty Laws and Slavery in the Territories” (1861); “The Right of Secession” (1861); “Constitutional Law” (1862); “Habeas Corpus and Martial Law” (Philadelphia, 1862); “The War Powers of Congress and the President” (1863); “Revolution and Construction” (New York, 1866); “The Three Powers of Government” (1869); and “Conflict of Decisions” (Cambridge, 1875).