 Thomas Todd was born in Virginia in 1765. He
was the youngest of 5 children. Todd served the Revolutionary cause while a
teen, and later graduated from what is now Washington and Lee University.
With his cousin, Todd moved to Kentucky, and began practicing law. In this
new, frontier state, Todd served in a number of positions in the
Commonwealth. In 1801, Todd was appointed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals,
its highest court. In 1807, after Congress expanded the number of seats on
the Supreme Court to 7, Todd was nominated by Thomas Jefferson. The
difficulty of travel to Washington for the Court's abbreviated annual Terms
caused Todd to miss a number of sessions of the Court. During his 20 years
on the Court, Todd wrote 14 opinions, only one of which was a dissenting
opinion. |
