Honoring Macon Bolling Allen, the first Black attorney in U.S. history

Hon. Macon Bolling Allen was the first Black attorney and judge in U.S. history. Image courtesy of Hon. Maurice Muir

By Hon. Maurice E. Muir

It is generally accepted that until almost the middle of the 19th century there were no black lawyers in the United States and that the first was Macon Bolling Allen.

Allen’s parentage is obscure and his exact birthplace and date are uncertain. All that is known about Allen is that he was born in Indiana in 1816 as a free Negro, was a mulatto, and taught school in Indiana — before moving to Boston to procure a business career.

After apprenticing for six months in the office of Samuel E. Sewall — a prominent anti-slavery lawyer and one of the organizers of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831 — he relocated to Maine.

Thereafter, in 1844, he applied for admission to the Maine bar.

At that time, any citizen who could produce a certificate of good moral character, was over 21 years of age, a citizen of the state and exhibited a devotion to the study of law, was eligible for admission to the Bar. All others were required to pass a written examination.

Because Allen was a native of Indiana, he failed to satisfy the citizenship requirement. Consequently, he had to sit for the bar examination, which he passed the same year.

Through the efforts, and upon the motion of General Samuel Fessenden —another renowned anti- slavery attorney, who served as Vice President of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and as a Massachusetts Legislator — Allen was admitted to the Cumberland County Bar on July 18, 1844.

Thereafter, Allen moved to Boston and on the motion of Samuel E. Sewall, Chief Justice Merrick admitted Allen to practice before the courts of Common Pleas of Suffolk County bar on April 28, 1845 and the Supreme Judicial Court on May 3, 1985, thus becoming the first Black lawyer in the United State, as well as in Massachusetts. Following Allen’s admission, the Daily Eastern Argus, a Maine newspaper, reported:

“[M]r. Allen is 29 years of age — is a native of Indiana, and his color and physiognomy bespeak a mingled Indian and African extraction, in about equal proportion. He is a medium height and site, and passably good looking. He is indeed a better looking man than two or three white members of the Boston Bar, and it is hardly possible that he can be a worse lawyer than at least six of them, who we could name.”

Within one year of his move to Boston, Allen wrote to John Jay, then governor of New York, to express his disappointment with the practice of law in New England, where he stated:

“The prospect of my securing an adequate support . . . is certainly not go good as could be desired. Owing to the peculiar custom of the New England people, and especially Boston people, to sustain those chiefly who are of family and fortune, or who have been long established, this is not regarded as the best place for me who can boast none of these requisite appendages. . . .it has been frequently suggested to me that New York, where people greatly differ from our own in this particular I have noted, and with a colored population who themselves, it is reasonable to suppose, have sufficient business which they would give him [ could employ a colored lawyer . . .better than . . .Boston.”

Beyond his inability to attract a receptive clientele, Allen was publicly criticized by Massachusetts’s abolitionists for refusing to sign a petition pledging “not to sustain the government in any event, in the present war with Mexico.

In response to the “indecorous conduct,” Allen stated “I trust it will not seem presumptuous if I embrace the occasion. . . to say, that I sympathize as strongly with my brethren in bonds – with whom I am identified in almost every particular, as my nature, not a cold one, enables me to do so, and accordingly to the right that is in me, and my humble ability, am ever ready and willing to do all I can for their melioration.”

Despite his early frustrations, Allen remained in Massachusetts and was eventually recognized for his outstanding legal skills, prompting Gov. George N. Briggs — former U.S. representative and a member of the Whig Party — to appoint Allen as Justice of the Peace for Middlesex County on April 21, 1847.

This appointment was renewed by Briggs’ successor, Gov. Emory Washburn. As such, he emerged as the first Black lawyer in the history of the nation to be appointed to a post imbued with judicial authority.

During Reconstruction, Allen moved down south to Charleston, South Carolina, was admitted to the Bar, entered politics and joined the first known Black law firm: Whipper, Elliot & Allen, as a partner.

As a devout Republican, Allen was nominated in 1872 for secretary of state in a ticket of Republicans who split from the regular party, but his efforts were unsuccessful.

The following year, due to the death of the incumbent George Lee, who was the first Black Southern Inferior Court Judge, Allen was elected by the South Carolina State Senate to the position of Judge of the Inferior Court of Charleston County.

Yet, his election provoked some scathing remarks from the Charleston press, which noted:

“The election of a Judge of the Inferior Court of Charleston took place yesterday in joint assembly, and resulted in the choice of Mr. Macon B. Allen of Charleston, for that position. While we have no disposition to find fault with the General Assembly in selecting Mr. Allen for this responsible and onerous position, yet we think the office one that ought to have been abolished forthwith. There seems to be no earthly necessity for the office, while there are numerous reasons why it should be blotted out. In the first place the business could just as well be done in courts in other circuits and thus have the state at least fifteen thousand dollars per annum [sic]; and in the second place there is always danger of conflict of authority between the two courts, which ought, if possible to be avoided.”

Not much is known about Allen’s career after the late 1870s. However, in 1887 Allen was attorney for the Land and Improvement Association of Washington, D.C.

After fifty years of legal service, Judge Macon B. Allen died at the age of 78 on Oct. 10, 1894. He left behind his wife and son, Arthur W. Allen. He was buried at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, in Washington, D.C.

Hon. Maurice Muir is a Queens Supreme Court justice.