Garland, Augustus Hill

Garland, Augustus Hill, 1832–99, American lawyer and politician, b. Tipton co., Tenn. He became a prominent lawyer in Arkansas and during the Civil War served in the Confederate House of Representatives (1861–64) and Senate (1864–65). After the war, he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. He could not practice law, however, because of a congressional act of Jan., 1865, that debarred former members of the Confederate government. This led to Ex parte Garland (1867), a Supreme Court case in which Garland successfully pleaded that since the act was an ex post facto law it was unconstitutional. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867 but was refused his seat. As governor of Arkansas (1874–76), Garland was influential in restoring the soundness of the state's finances. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1877 to 1885 and as Attorney General from 1885 to 1889. He wrote Experiences in the Supreme Court of the United States (1898) and, with Robert Ralston, A Treatise on the Constitution and Jurisdiction of the United States Courts (1898).