Robert M. Douglas

Robert Martin Douglas (1849-1917) was a North Carolina Supreme Court justice and political figure. Born on January 28, 1849 in Rockingham County, North Carolina, he was the son of Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Democrat of Illinois) and Martha Martin, originally of North Carolina. As a child, Robert spent a great deal of time in his mother's home state. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1867 [ [http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/douglas2.html Stephen A. Douglas ] ] , and would later return to earn a Master's degree and a doctoral degree in law from the same university.

In the aftermath of the American Civil War, he turned away from the Democratic Party to which his father had famously belonged. He believed that that party had died during the war [ [http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/item.aspx?id=rmd Eastern North Carolina Digital Library - Speech of Col. Robert M. Douglas, of Washington, D.C., delivered at a Republican mass meeting held at Smithfield, N.C., July 12th, 1870 ] ] , and so he became a prominent Republican.

During 1868, he was private secretary to the Governor of North Carolina, and from 1869 to 1873 was private secretary to President Grant [ [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/4/22*.html Robert E. Lee (by Freeman) — Vol. IV Chap. 22 ] ] . For the next decade, he was United States Marshal for North Carolina, while from 1888 to 1896, he served as Master in Chancery to the United States Circuit Court.

On June 23, 1874, he married Jessie Madeline Dick, daughter of the Honorable Robert Paine Dick of North Carolina. They had four children together: Madeleine Douglas (who later married Col. Edward Warren Myers), Robert Dick Douglas (1875-1960), Stephen Arnold Douglas (b. 1879), and Martin F. Douglas (b. 1886).

He was elected to the North Carolina Supreme Court as a Republican in 1896. In 1901, Justice Douglas and Chief Justice David M. Furches (also a Republican) were impeached by the Democratic Party-controlled North Carolina House of Representatives "for issuing an allegedly unconstitutional mandamus ordering the State Treasurer to pay out money." Neither were removed from office by the necessary two-thirds vote of the North Carolina Senate, although a simple majority of senators favored removal. Douglas served out his eight-year term and then retired from the court. [ [http://www.aoc.state.nc.us/www/copyright/sc/facts.html NC Supreme Court History ] ]

A frequent contributor to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he died at his home in Greensboro, North Carolina on February 8, 1917.

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