Edward D. White

Edward D. White was the son of a slaveholding suger planter; he was born and raised in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana. White traveled north to college and enrolled briefly in Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Maryland and in Georgetown College (now Georgetown University) in Washington DC. But White's education was cut short by the Civil War. He enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1861. Two years later, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war until the end of the conflict.

Following the war, White read law in New Orleans and then was admitted to the bar. He established a successful practice and then entered politics. He was elected as a Democrat to the state senate. In 1878, at the tender age of 33, he was appointed to the Louisiana Supreme Court; he was later removed from the court when he could not meet a new minimum age requirement enacted after his appointment became effective. Ten years later, he returned to politics when the state legislature elected him to represent Louisiana in the U.S. Senate.

White's appointment to the Supreme Court was a surprise. President Cleveland had twice sought to appoint New Yorkers to replace Blatchford, who had died; but the New York senators were Cleveland's foes and they exercised senatorial courtesy to scotch the appointments. Cleveland found a lead-pipe cinch in White since senators would never disapprove of one of their own.