Historical Image of the Day

To close our set of Gilded Age Supreme Court judges with awesome facial hair, we have Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II of Mississippi. Appointed by Grover Cleveland in 1888.

You might think that the nation would have barred leading secessionists from serving on the nation's highest court, but you'd be wrong. Lamar was a member of Mississippi's secessionist committee in 1860 and then became a Confederate officer. Despite this, he was back in the House of Representatives in 1873. When Grover Cleveland became president in 1884, he named Lamar Secretary of the Interior and then promoted to the Court near the end of his first term. He served until 1893 when he died, having left no discernible mark upon the Court.