page_title: Jeremiah S. Black
section_title: James Buchanan's Cabinet (1857–1861)
hierarchical_section_title: Jeremiah S. Black / James Buchanan's Cabinet (1857–1861)
caption_attribution_description: President James Buchanan and his cabinet, from left to right, Jacob Thompson (Secretary of the Interior), Lewis Cass (State), John B. Floyd (War), President Buchanan, Howell Cobb (Treasury), Isaac Toucey (Navy), Joseph Holt (Postmaster-General) and Jeremiah S. Black (Attorney-General).
context_page_description: Jeremiah Sullivan Black was an American statesman and lawyer. He served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and as the Court's Chief Justice. He also served in the Cabinet of President James Buchanan, first as Attorney General, and then Secretary of State.
context_section_description: In 1857, he joined the administration of James Buchanan as Attorney General. In this capacity, he successfully contested the validity of the California land claims to about 19,000 square miles (49,000 km²) of land, fraudulently alleged to have been granted to land-grabbers and others by the Mexican government prior to the close of the Mexican–American War.
  When Secretary of State Lewis Cass resigned in December 1860, Black was appointed to replace him, serving from December 17, 1860, to the end of Buchanan's term on March 4, 1861. Black successfully urged the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton as his successor as Attorney General.
  Black was perhaps the most influential of President Buchanan's official advisers too, during the secession crisis. He denied the constitutionality of secession, and urged that Fort Sumter be properly reinforced and defended. However, he also argued that a state could not be legally coerced by the Federal government.
  On February 5, 1861, President Buchanan nominated him for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States; but a February 21 motion to proceed to consider the nomination was defeated 25–26, and it lapsed at the end of the 36th Congress. Subsequently, Black was named Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, a position he held for two years. After publishing the reports for 1861 and 1862 (U.S. 66–67), he resigned and devoted himself almost exclusively to his private law practice.
caption: The Buchanan Cabinet, c. 1859: (From left to right) Jacob Thompson, Lewis Cass, John B. Floyd, James Buchanan, Howell Cobb, Isaac Toucey, Joseph Holt, and Jeremiah Black
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