BLACK, JEREMIAH SULLIVAN Ameri can lawyer and statesman, was born in Stony Creek township, Somerset county, Pa., on Jan. 10, 1810. He was largely self-edu cated, and before he was of age was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar. He gradually became one of the leading American lawyers, and in 1851-57 was a member of the supreme court of Pennsyl vania (chief-justice 1851-54). In 18S7 he entered President Buchanan's cabinet as attorney-general of the United States, and in this capacity successfully contested the validity of the "Cali fornia land claims." From Dec. 17, 1860 to March 4, 1861, he was secretary of State. Perhaps the most influential of Presi dent Buchanan's official advisers, he denied the constitutionality of secession, and urged that Fort Sumter be properly reinforced and defended. "For . . . the vigorous assertion at last in word and in deed that the United States is a nation," says James Ford Rhodes, "for pointing out the way in which the authority of the Federal Government might be exercised without infringing on the rights of the States, the gratitude of the American people is due to Jeremiah S. Black." After 1862 he devoted himself almost exclusively to law practice, appearing in important cases before the supreme court. After the Civil War he vigorously opposed the Congressional plan of reconstructing the late Confederate states, and himself drafted the message of President Johnson, vetoing the Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867. Black was also for a short time counsel for President Andrew Johnson, in his impeachment trial, and for William W. Belknap (1829-90), secretary of war from 1869 to 1876, who in 1876 was impeached on a charge of corruption; and with others he represented Samuel J. Tilden be fore the Electoral Commission (q.v.) in 1877. He died at Brockie, Pa., on Aug. 19, 1883.
See Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black, -with a Biographical Sketch (1885), by his son, C. F. Black.