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6 unusual facts about Spencer Roane


Article Six of the United States Constitution

In Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816), the Supreme Court confronted the Chief Justice of Virginia, Spencer Roane, who had previously declared a Supreme Court decision unconstitutional and refused to permit the state courts to abide by it.

Donald Livingston

His political philosophy embodies the decentralizing themes echoed by Europeans such as Althusius, David Hume, and Lord Acton and Americans such as Thomas Jefferson, Spencer Roane, Abel Parker Upshur, Robert Hayne and John Calhoun, which holds the community and family as the elemental units of political society.

Roane County, West Virginia

It was named for the jurist Spencer Roane of Virginia, born in Essex County April 4, 1762.

Spencer Roane

Roane, Ritche and Dr. John Brockenbrough, all natives of Essex County, Virginia became known as the "Essex Junto" because of their political power in the county courts and the officeholders dependent on them.

In 1804, Roane persuaded his cousin Thomas Ritchie, a schoolteacher and bookstore owner, to establish the 'Richmond Enquirer' as an intellectual counterweight to the 'Virginia Gazette' (which supported the Whig party) and 'Richmond Recorder' (which supported the Federalists).

Spencer, West Virginia

Spencer is named for Spencer Roane, an early judge on the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.



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