page_title: Edward Douglass White
section_title: Political career
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Douglass White / Political career
caption_attribution_description: Senator Edward Douglass White, later Supreme Court justice and chief justice.
context_page_description: Edward Douglass White Jr., was an American politician and jurist from Louisiana. He was a United States Senator and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States. He served on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1894 to 1921. He is best known for formulating the Rule of Reason standard of antitrust law.
  Born in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, White practiced law in New Orleans after graduating from the University of Louisiana. His father, Edward Douglass White Sr., was the 10th Governor of Louisiana and a Whig US Representative. White fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and was captured in 1865. After the war, White won election to the Louisiana State Senate and served on the Louisiana Supreme Court. As a member of the Democratic Party, White represented Louisiana in the United States Senate from 1891 to 1894.
  In 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed White as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1910, President William Howard Taft elevated him to the position of Chief Justice. The appointment surprised many contemporaries, as Taft was a member of the Republican Party.
context_section_description: While living on his family's abandoned plantation, White began his legal studies. He enrolled at the University of Louisiana in New Orleans to complete his study of the law, at what is now known as the Tulane University Law School. He subsequently was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in New Orleans in 1868. He was also mentored as a young attorney by Edouard Bermudez, a New Orleans lawyer who later served as Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court.
  White served in the Louisiana State Senate in 1874, a year marked by interracial violence in political campaigns and elections. He also served on the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1878 to 1880. In 1891, the State Legislature elected him to the United States Senate to succeed James B. Eustis. During his time in state politics White was politically affiliated with two-time governor Francis T. Nicholls (1876–1880; 1888–1892), a former Confederate general.
caption: Edward White as a U.S. Senator
exif: {}