Biography of John Lee Webster



Excerpted from "Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1911-1912", Edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary. 

Vol XII., State Printing Office, Topeka, Kansas 1912.



submitted by Teresa Lindquist (merope@radix.net); (copyright) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist

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JOHN LEE WEBSTER, LL. D., of Omaha, president of the Nebraska State Historical Society. was born March 18, 1847, in 

Harrison county. Ohio. The first fifteen years of his life were spent on his father's farm, alternating between farm work 

and attending a country school. At the age of fifteen he began preparation for college, which was interrupted in 1864 by 

enlistment as a private in the army. In 1865 he entered Washington (Pennsylvania) College, graduating later from Mount 

Union (Ohio) College. He entered the law office of Thomas Marshall in Pittsburg, and in 1868 was married to Josephine Leah 

Watson. Upon his admission to the bar, in 1869, he settled in Omaha, and for forty-two years has been very active in his 

profession, appearing in many of the noted cases of the country during this period. He served in the state legislature of 

Nebraska in 1873, and was a member and president of the constitutional convention which met in 1875 and made the present 

constitution of Nebraska. He was delegate at large from Nebraska in the Republican national convention which met at 

Minneapolis and nominated Benjamin Harrison, and again in the convention of 1896 at St. Louis. In 1887 he was city attorney 

of Omaha. Mr. Webster is not only a great lawyer, interested in many of the most important cases before the courts, but he 

is a thorough student, a statesman of wide views, a stirring political campaigner, a polished and forceful speaker. In his 

addresses before bar associations or commercial or patriotic gatherings he has discussed "Has the United States Outgrown 

the Constitution?" "Has the United States a Destiny to Fulfill in China?" "The Right of the Nation to Acquire, Hold and 

Govern Acquired Territory," and "The Enlargement of American Commerce." He was attorney in the habeas corpus case of 

Standing Bear, in which the court held for the first time that an Indian is a "person" and is entitled to secure the rights 

of personal liberty from military custody. He carried through the United States supreme court a case of an Omaha Indian to 

establish the status of Indians under the fourteenth amendment. These suits laid the foundation for the humanitarian 

agitation that resulted in the acts of Congress providing for the allotment of lands to Indians in severalty and their 

ultimate attainment of citizenship. He has also represented in many cases great financial interests.



(Included with the article "The West: Its Place in American History", page 25-26)