March 23, 1808...William Barclay Napton's Birthday
Judge William Barclay Napton, whose opinions have been considered models of clearness, conciseness, and sound legal authority, spent twenty-five years as a Missouri Supreme Court judge. Napton was born near Princeton, New Jersey, March 23, 1808, attended grammar school at Lawrenceville, and graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1826. During the next three years he was a tutor and for a time conducted a preparatory school in Charlottesville, Virginia. During the years from 1826 to 1830 Napton studied law and in 1830 he graduated from the University of Virginia with high honors. He was then admitted to the bar in 1831.
Napton came to Missouri in 1832, settling first in Columbia, but moving in a few months to Fayette, where he became the editor of the "Boonslick Democrat." Always an ardent Democrat, he later joined the anti-Benton faction. He was secretary of the State Senate during 1834-1835. Governor Lilburn W. Boggs appointed him Attorney General of Missouri on December 14, 1836 and judge of the State Supreme Court on January 29, 1839. The judiciary offices were made elective in 1851, and Napton was defeated in the August election of that same year. He returned to the Supreme Court bench in 1857, serving until 1861 when he and his colleagues refused to take the test oath.
In 1863 Napton moved to St. Louis and practiced law. June 24, 1873, he was again appointed to the State Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge Ewing, and in the next year's election he was chosen to serve the rest of Ewing's term. When Napton's term expired on December 31, 1880, he retired to Elk Hill, his farm in Saline County, where he died January 8, 1883.
Except for upholding state's rights, Napton was progressive in adjusting legal principles to new conditions. He was the chief, if not the only author of the Jackson resolutions, which the state legislature passed in 1847 instructing Senator Thomas Hart Benton to support the extreme proslavery program in Congress. When trouble over slavery brewed in Kansas, Napton lined up with the proslavery faction. When a proslavery convention met in July 1855, at Lexington, Missouri, Napton headed the resolutions committee. Napton, however, apparently did not take part in the war.
The first two pages of a letter written by W.B. Napton to C.F. Jackson, dated October 3, 1857. For primary source material see…