Rufus King (lawyer)

During the American Civil War, King was entrusted by Governor William Dennison, Jr. to meet with citizens of Louisville from the neutral state of Kentucky, to assure them Ohio would not embargo shipping goods to that state. It turned out that that would not be the position of the citizens of Cincinnati, or of the federal government.[9]

In 1846, King was a member of conventions to form a citycharter.[3] He was electeded a members of city council in 1848 and served one term.[10] In 1872 he was elected to a constitutional convention to write a new constitution for Ohio. The convention met in Columbus starting in 1873, with Morrison Waite as the president of the convention. The meeting moved to Cincinnati in October, 1873. When Waite was made Chief Justice of the United States in early 1874, King became president of the convention.[5] The Board of Tax Commissioners was created in 1883, and consisted of three men from the city. He serves as vice-president in past of the board until it was dissolved in 1891.[11]

A bookplate designed in 1903 by Edwin Davis French for the Cincinnati Law Library featuring a bust of King

In 1859, King was elected by city council a director of McMicken University. On December 30 of that year, he was selected president of the board, and was re-elected each year until the name of the school was changed to the University of Cincinnati in 1870. He was then president of that board until 1877.[12][3][13]

Rufus King's father was one of the founders of the Cincinnati Law School.[14] Rufus King taught at the school, and was Dean of the Faculty from 1875 to 1880.[15] He resigned the deanship, but continued to teach constitutional law and the law of real property until his death.[16]

King was the second president of the Ohio State Bar Association from 1881 to 1882.[17][18] He was president of the Cincinnati Bar Association for forty years.[12] In 1864, Governor John Brough offered King a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court, which he declined.[19] The Cincinnati Law Library Association was formed in 1847 by King, Alphonso Taft, Bellamy Storer, Salmon P. Chase and others. King was elected president of the board of directors in 1855, and held the office 36 years until his death.[20]

His mind was wonderfully clear and his penetration deep; but he did not rely for success upon acumen or other natural gifts. He studied each case and presented it in court only after the exhaustive research which gave him the mastery of its principles and details. This habit, more than any other influence, made his reputation as a successful practitioner. And Rufus King was a great lawyer.

— George Reed et al.[5]

King also served as a director of the Cincinnati Southern Railway and Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad companies.[21] For a short time he acted as president of each.[22]

In 1888, King authored Ohio, First Fruits of the Ordinance of 1787, one of a collection of state histories in Horace E. Scudder's American Commonwealths series. His widow wrote: "Among other things, it was his wish to enlarge his history of Ohio, which he had written under the disadvantage of being compelled to abridge the volume to a uniform size of a series for which he had undertaken to write. ... Mr. King's great desire, however, was to prepare a much-needed law book on a subject which for years had been a study of deep thought and research."[23]