Severn Teackle Wallis

Severn Teackle Wallis

A statue of Severn Teackle Wallis

Severn Teackle Wallis (September 8, 1816–April 11, 1894) was an American lawyer.

Biography

Severn Wallis graduated from St. Mary's College, Baltimore, in 1832, studied law with William Wirt, attorney general, and with John Glenn. In 1837 Wallis was admitted to the bar.

Wallis early developed a taste for literature and contributed to periodicals many articles of literary and historical criticism, also occasional verses. He became a proficient in Spanish literature and history and was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of history of Madrid in 1843.

In 1846 he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society of northern antiquaries of Copenhagen.

In 1847 he visited Spain and in 1849 the U. S. government sent him on a special mission to that country to examine the title to the public lands in east Florida, as affected by royal grants during the negotiations for the treaty of 1819.

From 1859 until 1861 Wallis contributed largely to the editorial columns of the Baltimore Exchange, and wrote for other journals.

He was a Whig until the organization of the American or Know-Nothing party, after which he was a Democrat.

In 1861 Wallis was sent to the house of delegates of Maryland, and took an active part in the proceedings of the Maryland Legislature, of that year at Frederick. He was chairman of the committee on Federal relations, and made himself obnoxious to the Federal authorities by his reports, which were adopted by the legislature, and which took strong ground against the Civil War, as well as against the then prevailing "doctrine of military necessity".

In September of that year Wallis was arrested with many members of the legislature and other citizens of the state, and imprisoned for more than fourteen months in various forts. He was released in November, 1862, without conditions and without being informed of the cause of his arrest.

He then returned to the practice of the law in Baltimore. In 1870, on the death of John Pendleton Kennedy, Wallis was elected provost of the University of Maryland.

In December, 1872, as chairman of the art committee of private citizens appointed by the Maryland legislature, he delivered the address upon the unveiling of William Henry Rinehart's statue of Chief-Justice Roger Brooke Taney.

A statue in his likeness stands in Mount Vernon Square in Baltimore, Maryland.

Published works

Wallis contributed to many periodicals and numerous pamphlets on legal and literary subjects. Wallis also published:

• Glimpses of Spain (1849)
• Spain: Her Institutions, Politics, and Public Men (1853)
• Discourse on the Life and Character of George Peabody (1870)

Source

• Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography; vol. vi.; pp. 338, 339; Edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske; New York: D. Appleton and Company (1889)