Legislator, jurist. Grimk\u00e9 was born in Charleston on December 16, 1752, the son of merchant John Paul Grimk\u00e9 and his wife, Mary Faucheraud. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1774, Grimk\u00e9 returned to Charleston. His marriage to Mary Smith on October 12, 1784, produced fourteen children, including noted abolitionists Angelina and Sarah Grimk\u00e9.<\/p>\n
His judicial prominence stemmed from early political and military involvement. As a student in England in 1774, Grimk\u00e9 joined twenty-eight other Americans in protesting the Boston Port Bill. Shortly after returning to Charleston in September 1775, Grimk\u00e9 organized an artillery unit for service in the Revolutionary War. Rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1779, he was captured at the fall of Charleston. He was later imprisoned by the British for allegedly violating his parole, but escaped to join General Nathanael Greene\u2019s army, where he served the remainder of the war.<\/p>\n
In 1782 Grimk\u00e9 began the first of five terms representing the city parishes of St. Philip\u2019s and St. Michael\u2019s in the General Assembly, including a term as Speaker of the House from 1785 to 1786. Soon after the war, the legislature revived state law courts and named Grimk\u00e9 an associate justice of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions in March 1783. Many upstate citizens loyal to Britain during the war feared the nascent judiciary would extract revenge and lack impartiality. At his first grand jury charge in Camden in November 1783, Grimk\u00e9 sought to calm those concerns by declaring \u201cWe are all Americans\u201d and that \u201cour passions\u201d were the only enemy of legal justice. Soon after his appointment, the legislature created county courts to hear minor cases, where laymen versed in local custom presided. To provide courtroom standards, Grimk\u00e9 published The South Carolina Justice of Peace <\/em>in 1784 as a guide for officers of the new judiciary. In 1790 Grimk\u00e9 published the first updated digest of state laws in fifty years, The Public Laws of the State of South Carolina. <\/em>Listing relevant and applicable laws in the period between the Revolutionary War and ratification of the Constitution, his digest provided a groundwork for judicial uniformity and the professionalization of legal study in South Carolina.<\/p>\n Grimk\u00e9 also resisted outside intimidation of the young state judiciary. In 1785 he encountered hostile debtors on his circuit in Camden. Grimk\u00e9 dismissed the \u201cCamden Court House Riot\u201d as an \u201cillegal measure\u201d and maintained the legitimacy of the court. As a delegate to the state constitutional convention in May 1790, Grimk\u00e9 introduced the provisions separating the judiciary from the legislature and requiring a two-thirds vote for judicial impeachment. In 1811 he took advantage of this proviso to defeat impeachment charges brought against him by political opponents.<\/p>\n During his thirty-six years on the bench, Grimk\u00e9 helped establish fundamental principles of South Carolina jurisprudence by advocating professionalization of legal study, uniformity of law, and judicial independence. After an extended illness, Grimk\u00e9 died in Long Branch, New Jersey, on August 9, 1819.<\/p>\n King, Stephen Earl. \u201cThe Honorable John Faucheraud Grimk\u00e9 of South Carolina.\u201d Master\u2019s thesis, University of South Carolina, 1993.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Legislator, jurist. Grimk\u00e9 was born in Charleston on December 16, 1752, the son of merchant John Paul Grimk\u00e9 and his wife, Mary Faucheraud. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1774, Grimk\u00e9 returned to Charleston. His marriage to Mary Smith on October 12, 1784, produced fourteen children, including noted abolitionists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","class_list":["post-6751","entry","type-entry","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ecms-a-z","ecms-charleston-county","ecms-colonial-period-1670-1764","ecms-colonial-unrest-american-revolution-and-new-republic-1765-1789","ecms-early-republic-and-war-of-1812-1790-1815","ecms-encyclopedia","ecms-g","ecms-government-and-law","ecms-lowcountry","ecms-military","ecms-politics","ecms-the-antebellum-south-1816-1860"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n