Augustus Hill Garland

Augustus Hill Garland was an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney General from 1885 to 1889. Born in Tennessee in 1832, he spent much of his early life and legal career in Arkansas, where he became a prominent attorney before entering national politics. His tenure in the Department of Justice coincided with the first administration of President Grover Cleveland, during which he was confirmed by the Senate as the 38th person to hold the office.

Early life and career

Garland entered the world on June 11, 1832, in Covington, Tennessee, to parents Rufus and Barbara Garland. The family’s early years were marked by relocation; when Augustus was one year old, they moved to Lost Prairie in Lafayette County, Arkansas, following a violent incident involving his father. After Rufus died in 1830, Barbara and young Augustus settled in Spring Hill, Arkansas, where she later married Thomas Hubbard, a local lawyer and judge who owned five slaves according to the 1850 census.

Garland’s education began at the Spring Hill Male Academy from 1838 to 1843. In 1844 his stepfather relocated the family to Washington, Arkansas, the seat of Hempstead County. There he attended St. Mary’s College in Lebanon, Kentucky, and graduated from St. Joseph’s College in Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1849. Upon returning to Arkansas, Garland initially taught at a school in Brownstown before studying law under Simon Sanders, the clerk of Hempstead County.

On June 14, 1853, he married Sarah Virginia Sanders; together they had nine children, though only four survived into adulthood. Admitted to the bar that same year, Garland began his legal practice with his stepfather and later moved to Little Rock in 1856. He partnered with Ebenezer Cummins, a former associate of Albert Pike, and after Cummins’ death at age 25 he assumed control of the firm. By 1860 he had formed a partnership with William Randolph.

Garland’s early legal work included representing enslaved individuals in appeals to the Arkansas Supreme Court. In 1857 and again in 1861 he successfully argued for the freedom of Abby Guy, an enslaved woman who had been held by Garland’s own client. The 1860 census recorded that Garland owned three enslaved females—two aged 27 and one aged 11—while his brother Rufus owned nine slaves.

Politically, Garland was active in the Whig and American “Know Nothing” parties during the 1850s. He declined a county treasurer position but remained engaged, delivering speeches for Democrat Edward A. Warren in the 1856 election for Arkansas’s second congressional district. In the 1860 presidential election he served as a constitutional unionist elector for John Bell and Edward Everett.

During the early stages of the Civil War, Garland consistently opposed secession and advocated Arkansas's continued allegiance to the United States. His elder brother Rufus raised a Confederate infantry company (the “Hempstead Hornets”) and accepted a captain’s commission. Augustus Garland was selected to represent Pulaski County at the 1861 secession convention in Little Rock, where he voiced his opposition. After Lincoln called for 75,000 troops from Arkansas to help suppress the Confederate States, Garland gave his support to secession.

Four days after approving the secession ordinance, the convention delegates appointed Garland to the Provisional Confederate Congress, where he was the youngest member of the body. Garland was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives over Jilson P. Johnson in the 1st Confederate States Congress in 1861, where he was a member of the Committees on Public Lands, Commerce and Financial Independence, and the Judiciary. In 1862, Garland was narrowly defeated by Robert W. Johnson, who had been the incumbent in the United States Senate, for a seat in the Confederate States Senate, with the twelfth ballot going 46-42. He was reelected to the Confederate House of Representatives in 1863, where he was now serving alongside his brother Rufus. In 1864 he was appointed to the Confederate States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Charles B. Mitchel in a close vote against Albert Pike. As a Congressman, he made efforts to establish a Supreme Court of the Confederate States and supported President Jefferson Davis, with the exception of Davis' aside suspending the writ of habeas corpus for the duration of the war (as had Lincoln in the North). He returned to Arkansas in February 1865, when it was clear the Confederacy was about to lose so that he could help facilitate the transition of power from exiled Confederate governor Harris Flanagin to Isaac Murphy with General Joseph J. Reynolds, and the return of his state to the Union.

Not long after the Civil War ended, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Garland on July 15, 1865. He was nonetheless forbidden to resume his legal practice without taking the Ironclad Oath, which the United States Congress had required of all Confederate government or military officials, per a law passed on January 24, 1865. In Ex parte Garland, Garland argued that the law was unconstitutional and ex post facto. On January 14, 1867, by a vote of five to four, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. The ruling caused considerable uproar in the north, but former Confederates hoped that the judicial system could be used to prevent the implementation of Congressional Reconstruction.

Cabinet tenure

In 1885 Garland was appointed United States Attorney General by President Grover Cleveland. The Senate confirmed his nomination, and he assumed office as the department’s chief legal officer on that year. He held the position until 1889, completing a full four‑year term. During his service he oversaw the Department of Justice’s work in enforcing federal law, advising the executive branch, and representing the United States in civil and criminal litigation. While specific initiatives from his tenure are not detailed here, his role involved coordinating legal policy across federal agencies and ensuring that the administration’s priorities were reflected in judicial proceedings.

Legacy

Garland’s career extended beyond his cabinet service into significant moments of American history. After the Civil War he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson on July 15, 1865, but faced restrictions on resuming private legal practice until he took the Ironclad Oath required of former Confederate officials. He challenged this requirement in *Ex parte Garland*, arguing that it violated constitutional principles. The Supreme Court, in a 5‑4 decision issued on January 14, 1867, agreed with Garland, ruling the law unconstitutional and ex post facto. This landmark case influenced the legal landscape surrounding Reconstruction and the rights of former Confederates.

Following his time as Attorney General, Garland continued to be involved in public affairs until his death on January 26, 1899. His life spanned a period of profound change in the United States—from pre‑Civil War tensions through Reconstruction and into the Gilded Age—providing him with experience that shaped his contributions to federal law and governance.