Edward B. Green (judge)

President Benjamin Harrison appointed Green as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court for the newly-created Oklahoma Territory, effective May 14, 1890.[3]

This court was divided into three districts. The First District included Logan and Payne Counties (then known as counties 1 and 2, respectively), and would be led by Chief Justice Green. First District also included the unorganized Cherokee Outlet, lands belonging to the Ponca, Otoe, Tonkawa, Missouri, Pawnee, Osage, Kansas, and Kansas tribes, and portions of the Iowa, Kickapoo, and Sac and Fox tribes reservations. Court sessions were designated to be held in Guthrie and Stillwater.[2]

Associate Justice Seay presided over the Second District, which covered Canadian, Kingfisher and Beaver Counties and the rest of the Cherokee Outlet. It also covered the Apache, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita lands. Court sessions were to be held in Beaver, El Reno and Kingfisher.[2]

Associate Justice Clark presided over the Third District, which included Cleveland and Oklahoma Counties and the southern portions of the Iowa, Kickapoo and Sac and Fox lands. Court sessions were to be held in Norman and Oklahoma City.[2]

One early biographer described Judge Green as "...a profound lawyer, eminent for his judicial bearing and scholarly attainments. He was a gentleman of culture, and, by his uniform courtesy, won the respect of the people and the good will of the bar."[1]

Green summarized the conditions he had to deal with as the first Chief Justice in his report to the President and Congress:

Never before in the organization of territorial course were the same difficulties encountered as in the organization of the courts of Oklahoma. No other territory was opened to settlement in the same manner, and the conditions which confronted the courts at the very threshold of their work were sui generis; and the innumerable questions which arose were entirely without precedent.[1]

As chief justice, Green made a notable ruling that the U.S. government did not have legal authority to kidnap Native American children and put them in American schools without the written permission of their parents. He immediately ordered that an Indian boy named Thomas Lincoln be released from Chilocco Indian Agricultural School (which was located in the territory) be released and restored to his parental home in Iowa.[4]

Although Green's decision had little direct impact outside of Oklahoma Territory, it roiled the rest of the country. Many leaders of other states feared that the precedent would seriously damage the government's policy for educating Indians and potentially empty Indian schools all over the country. Ultimately, the situation was resolved without bloodshed, although the use of military force was threatened on more than one occasion, as explained by Matthew Gilbert's book.[4]

President Harrison's run for reelection in 1892 failed, and he was succeeded effective March 4, 1893, by the incoming Democratic President, Grover Cleveland. Territorial officials had become traditionally patronage jobs, so on that same day, President Cleveland accepted Chief Justice Green's resignation and pronounced Democratic Party candidate, Frank Dale, as the new Chief Justice of Oklahoma Territory. Green promptly returned to his former home in Mt. Carmel, Illinois and resumed his private practice of law.[1]