Talk:John C. Shields

A fact from John C. Shields appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 March 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Arizona Territorial Chief Justice Sumner Howard resigned to ease the appointment of John C. Shields, only to see Shields' nomination rejected by the United States Senate?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sumner Howard, John C. Shields.

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Question

How could Shields have taken the oath of office and issued 8 opinions if he had not yet been confirmed by the Senate? Yoninah (talk) 23:02, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

He received a recess appointment. This was a fairly common in the late 1800s as the congress was not in session for most of the year. The 49th United States Congress was not in session until December 7, 1885, allowing a month for Shield to take office between the time of his appointment and their return from recess. --Allen3 ^talk 23:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that makes sense. Thank you, Yoninah (talk) 23:35, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]