WHARTON, FRANCIS (1820-89). An Ameri can jurist, born in Philadelphia. After graduat ing at Yale College in 1839, he practiced law in Philadelphia until 1855. He was professor of English literature, jurisprudence, and history at Kenyon College (Gambier, Ohio) from 1856 to 1863, when he was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church and accepted a rectorate at Brookline, Mass. In 1866 he was called to the chairs of ecclesiastical and international law at the Cambridge Divinity School and Boston Uni versity. From 1885 he was counsel to the United States Department of State and examiner of international claims, and in 1888 was made editor of the Revolutionary diplomatic corre spondence of the United States. This work, in course of publication at the time of his death, superseded Sparks's Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution. His best-known
original work is A Treatise on the Criminal Lazo of the United States (184.6). which was long standard. Among his other valuable legal writ ings are: State Trials of the United States Dur ing the Administrations of Washington and Adams (1849): A Treatise on the Lan- of Homi eirle in the United States (1855) ; A Treatise on the Conflict of Lames, or Private international Law (1872) : and various commentaries. He also wrote A Treatise on Theism and Modern Skeptical Theories (1859) and The Silence of Scripture (1867). Under his editorship was published in 1886 A Digest of the International Laze of the United ."tatcs, a work of great value, "taken from Documents issued by Presidents and Secretaries of State, and Hem Decisions of Fed eral Courts and Opinions of Attorneys-General."