Edward Douglass White Edward Douglass White , Jr . ( November 3 , 1845 – May 19 , 1921 ) , American politician and jurist , was a United States senator , Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and the ninth Chief Justice of the United States . He was best known for formulating the " Rule of Reason " standard of antitrust law . He also sided with the Supreme Court majority in the 1896 decision of " Plessy v . Ferguson " ( 1896 ) , which upheld the legality of segregation in the United States , though he did write for a unanimous court in " Guinn v . United States " ( 1915 ) , which struck down many Southern states ' grandfather clause s that disenfranchised blacks . Early life and education . White was born on his parents ' plantation near the town of Thibodeauxville ( now Thibodaux ) in Lafourche Parish in south Louisiana . He was the son of Edward Douglass White , Sr . , a former governor of Louisiana , and grandson of Dr . James White , a U . S . representative , physician , and judge . On his mother ' s side , he was the grandson of U . S . Marshal Tench Ringgold , and related to the Lee family of Virginia . The White family ' s large plantation cultivated sugar cane and refined it into a finished product . White ' s paternal ancestors were of Irish descent , and he was a devout Roman Catholic his entire life . He studied first at the Jesuit College in New Orleans , then at Mount St . Mary ’ s College , near Emmitsburg , Maryland , and then attended Georgetown University in Washington , D . C . where he was a member of the Philodemic Society . He later studied law at the University of Louisiana . American Civil War service . White ' s studies at Georgetown were interrupted by the American Civil War . It has been suggested that he returned to Bayou Lafourche , where he supposedly enlisted as an infantry man in the Confederate States Army under General Richard Taylor and eventually attained the rank of lieutenant . This is questionable , as his widowed mother had remarried and was living with the rest of the family in New Orleans at the time . When he returned to Louisiana , it was probably to his primary home in New Orleans . An apocryphal account states that White was almost captured by General Godfrey Weitzel ' s Union army when they invaded Bayou Lafourche in October 1862 , but that he evaded capture by hiding beneath hay in a barn . It is possible that White enlisted in the Lafourche militia , as its muster rolls are not complete . There is no documentation , however , that White served in any Confederate volunteer unit or militia unit engaged in campaigns in the Lafourche area . Another account suggests that he was assigned as an aide to Confederate General W . N . R . Beall and accompanied him to Port Hudson . Port Hudson had a garrison of 18 , 000 Confederate soldiers , but a numerically superior Union force surrounded it . After a siege lasting from May 21 to July 8 , 1863 ( the longest siege in North American history ) , the Confederate forces unconditionally surrendered after learning of the fall of Vicksburg . White ' s presence at Port Hudson is supported by a secondhand account of a postwar dinner conversation he had with Senator Knute Nelson of Minnesota , a Union veteran of Port Hudson , and another recounted by Admiral George Dewey ( then a Federal naval officer at Port Hudson ) , in both of which White mentioned his presence during the siege . However , White ' s name does not appear on any list of prisoners captured at Port Hudson . According to another account of questionable reliability , White was supposedly sent to a Mississippi prisoner of war camp . ( As practically all Confederate soldiers of enlisted rank of the Port Hudson garrison were paroled , and officers sent to prison in New Orleans and later at Johnson ' s Island , Ohio , this account is probably untrue . ) When he was paroled , he supposedly returned to the family plantation , but it was abandoned , the canefields were barren , and most of the former slaves had left . The only " hard " evidence of White ' s Confederate service consists of the account of his capture on March 12 , 1865 in an action in Morganza in Pointe Coupee Parish contained in the Official Records of the American Civil War , and his service records in the National Archives , documenting his subsequent imprisonment in New Orleans and parole in April 1865 . These records confirm his service as a lieutenant in Captain W . B . Barrow ' s company of a Louisiana cavalry regiment , for all practical purposes a loosely - organized band of irregulars or " scouts " ( guerrillas ) . One organizing officer of this regiment , sometimes called " Barrow ' s Regiment " or the " 9th Louisiana Cavalry Regiment , " was Major Robert Pruyn . Pruyn ( a postwar mayor of Baton Rouge , Louisiana ) served as courier relaying messages from Port Hudson ' s commander , General Franklin Gardner , to General Joseph E . Johnston , crossing the Union siege lines by swimming the Mississippi . Pruyn escaped from Port Hudson prior to its surrender in the same manner . It is interesting to speculate that perhaps White accompanied Pruyn during that escape , which would explain White ' s absence from Port Hudson ' s prisoner rolls and later service in Pruyn ' s regiment . According to another account , after his parole in April 1865 and following the surrender of the western Confederate forces , White ended his military career by walking ( his clothing in rags ) to a comrade ' s family home in Livonia in Pointe Coupee Parish . White ' s Civil War service was a matter of common knowledge at the time of his initial nomination to the United States Supreme Court , and the Confederate Veteran periodical , published for the United Confederate Veterans , congratulated him upon his affirmation . White was one of three ex - Confederate soldiers to serve on the Supreme Court . The others were Associate Justices Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar ( II ) and Horace Harmon Lurton . The Court ' s other ex - Confederate , Associate Justice Howell Edmunds Jackson , held a civil position under the Confederate government . Political career . While living on the abandoned plantation , White began his legal studies . He then enrolled at the University of Louisiana 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 briefly served in the Louisiana State Senate in 1874 and as an Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1879 to 1880 . He was politically affiliated with Governor Francis T . Nicholls , a former Confederate general . He became famous in Louisiana for helping to abolish the Louisiana Lottery , a hotbed of corruption the fate of which was taken before the state ' s Supreme Court which ordered it discontinued in 1894 . The state ' s legislature appointed White to the United States Senate in 1891 to succeed James B . Eustis . He served until his resignation on March 12 , 1894 , when he was nominated by President Grover Cleveland ( D ) to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . In 1896 he sided with the seven justices whose majority opinion in " Plessy v . Ferguson " approved segregation . The White Court , 1910 - 1921 . In 1910 , he was elevated by President William Howard Taft to the position of Chief Justice of the United States upon the death of Melville Fuller . At the time , it was a controversial appointment for two reasons . First , White was a Democrat while Taft was a Republican . The media of the day widely expected Taft to name Republican Justice Charles Evans Hughes to the post . Second , White was the first Associate Justice to be appointed Chief Justice since John Rutledge in 1795 . Some historians believe that President Taft appointed White , who was 65 years old at the time and overweight , in the hope that White would not serve all that long and that Taft himself might someday be appointed — - which is just what happened eleven years later . White was generally seen as one of the more conservative members of the court . He was the originator of the “ Rule of Reason . " However , White also wrote the decision upholding the constitutionality of the Adamson Act , which mandated a maximum eight - hour work day for railroad employees , in 1916 . White wrote for a unanimous Court in " Guinn v . United States " ( 1915 ) , which invalidated the Oklahoma and Maryland grandfather clauses ( and , by extension , those in other Southern states ) as " repugnant to the Fifteenth Amendment and therefore null and void . " However , in practice the Southern states found other methods to disfranchise blacks which withstood Court scrutiny . In 1918 , the " Selective Draft Law Cases " upheld the Selective Service Act of 1917 , and more generally , upheld conscription in the United States , which President ( and later , Supreme Court Chief Justice ) William Howard Taft said was " one of his great opinions . " As Chief Justice , White swore in Presidents Woodrow Wilson ( twice ) and Warren G . Harding . When he left the High Court , he was succeeded by William Howard Taft , making White the only Chief Justice to be followed by the President who appointed him . Chief Justice White was one of thirteen Catholic justicesout of 112 total through the appointment of Justice Elena Kagan in the history of the Supreme Court . He married Leita Montgomery Kent , the widow of Linden Kent , on November 6 , 1894 , in New York City . Death and legacy . White died in office and his remains were buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington , D . C . The Georgetown graveyard overlooks Rock Creek ; also interred there are Associate Justice Noah Swayne and " almost - Justice " Edwin M . Stanton . Chief Justice Salmon P . Chase was also buried there , but his body was transferred after 14 years to Cincinnati , Ohio ' s Spring Grove Cemetery . White ' s statue is one of the two honoring Louisiana natives in the National Statuary Hall in the U . S . Capitol . Another statue is in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court building in New Orleans . The second statue is a local landmark on the New Orleans scene , created by Bryant Baker , who was selected for the commission by White ' s widow , and dedicated 8 April 1926 . " Big Green Ed " , as his likeness is often referred to , is a favorite of locals and tourists alike . Visitors are often seen sitting at the base of his likeness , discussing issues of the day . Moreover , local custom holds that those who run around the statue in a counterclockwise direction will not be arrested that night . Edward Douglas White Catholic High School in Thibodaux , Louisiana , bears his name ( although it dropped the extra " s " at the end of " Douglass " ) . In his honor , the Edward Douglass White Lectures take place annually at the Louisiana State University Law Center . They have featured such distinguished speakers as Chief Justices Warren E . Burger and William H . Rehnquist . The play " Father Chief Justice : Edward Douglass White and the Constitution " by LSU Law Center professor Paul Baier was based on White ' s life . In early January 2009 the State of Louisiana commissioned American Memorial Restoration of Sherman Texas to restore and preserve the memorial statue of Chief Justice Edward Douglass White , Jr . , that resides on the front steps of the Louisiana Supreme Court Building at 400 Royal Street in the heart of the French Quarter of New Orleans . Photos of the statue ' s new look are at American Memorial Restoration . In 1995 , White was posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield . Edward Douglass White Council # 2473 of the Knights of Columbus in Arlington VA is named in his honor . Reeves , William D . , " Paths to Distinction : Dr . James White , Governor E . D . White and Chief Justice Edward Douglass White of Louisiana . " Thibodaux , La . , 1999 : Friends of the Edward Douglass White Historic Site . ISBN 1 - 887366 - 33 - 4 .