Breaux, Joseph A.

Submitted by Mike Miller

Breaux, Joseph A., chief justice of the supreme court of Louisiana from 1904 to 1914, and previously associate justice of the supreme court from 1890 to 1904, has served with distinction on the supreme bench for a period of 24 years. Justice Breaux is a native of Louisiana, born in Iberville parish February 18, 1838. His parents were John B. and Margaret (Walsh) Breaux, the father having been of French lineage, a native of Louisiana and a planter. In the course of his education Joseph A. Breaux, the son, attended the University of Louisiana and later Georgetown (Kentucky) college. He was admitted to the bar in 1859, but when the Civil war came on, the young attorney at once enlisted as a private in the Confederate army and served with loyalty to the cause and with distinguished gallantry throughout the term of the war. After the surrender, he returned home and began the earnest practice of law in 1865 at New Iberia, La. Shortly afterward he was made president of the school board of Iberia parish and proved so instrumental in increasing the efficiency of the common schools and making their usefulness more apparent that in 1888 he was elected state superintendent of public instruction for Louisiana. While incumbent of this office he prepared a bill remodeling the school laws of Louisiana. This bill was introduced and passed both hbuses of the legislature by large majorities, and in its operation thereafter largely increased the effective usefulness of the public school system of the state, for which the able and conscientious state superintendent has been widely commended. He also compiled the school laws of Louisiana and court decisions relating to these laws, which compilation was published in 1889. On April 24, 1890, he was appointed associate justice of the supreme court of Louisiana, and in 1904 became chief justice. As a jurist Justice Breaux has attained an eminence that has long marked him as a man of the profoundest legal knowledge, enabling him to render decisions that have been noted for their lucidity and even-bearing justice. Commenting upon his retirement from the supreme bench, the Times-Democrat of March 29, 1914, said: "Few prominent men of the state have played so long or so prominent a part in its affairs, public and private, as judge, lawyer, soldier and citizen; Judge Breaux is a native of tlie state, of an old and distinguished family, nearly 2 centuries domiciled in Louisiana, in colony, territory and state; one of the oldest graduates of the University of Louisiana and Georgetown college, one of the last connecting links between the bar of today and the bar of ante-bellum times, which ranked so high in public estimation throughout the Union and the world. He has been active since then in every progressive movement of his section, in business and financial enterprises, in the development and prosperity of the state, performing fully and honorably all his civil and political duties. He has labored to preserve the best traditions and history of the state, and there is no better authority on those subjects than he who has seen and known all the great Louisianians of the last 60 years. If ever a man deserved a rest now, that he may give his time to less onerous yet equally honorable services, Judge Breaux is that man. He has won that rest, and he has won honor also, for during all his years before the public no one has ever raised a whisper against him, or failed to recognize his worth and patriotic services." Just after his retirement from the supreme court bench he was honored by the governor of the state by being appointed a curator of Louisiana State museum. In 1861 Justice Breaux was married to Miss Eugenia Mille, a daughter of Thomas Mille. Mrs. Breaux 's father was a well-known Louisiana planter and business man of earlier times who had much to do with the rehabilitation of his portion of the state and its advance toward agricultural and industrial development that has brought general prosperity not only to that portion, but to the whole commonwealth.

Source: Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), pp. 62-63. Edited by Alcée Fortier, Lit.D. Published in 1914, by Century Historical
Association.