Further reading:
Margaret E. Horsnell, Spencer Roane: Judicial Advocate of Jeffersonian Principles (1986).
Timothy S. Huebner, The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890 (1999).
Gary McDowell, “Spencer Roane and the Politics of Federal Judicial Power, ” in McDowell, The Language of Law and the Foundations of American Constitutionalism (2010).
J. Miller Thornton, “John Marshall in Spencer Roane’s Virginia: The Southern Constitutional Opposition to the Marshall Court,” John Marshall Law Review vol. 3, No. 4 (2000).
J. Miller Thornton, “A Shield of Liberty: Pendleton’s and Roane’s Court of Appeals,” in Juries and Judges versus the Law: Virginia’s Provincial Perspective, 1783-1828 (1994).
Samuel R. Olken, “Spencer Roane (1762-1822),” Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law (2009).
Olken, “John Marshall and Spencer Roane: An Historical Analysis of Their Conflict over U. S. Supreme Court Appellate Jurisdiction, ” Journal of Supreme Court History (1990).
Larry Weekley, “Portrait’s Identity Not Sure,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (August 30, 1957), p. 6.
“Missing Portrait is Found,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (September 1, 1957), p. 42.
Allan Jones, “Roane’s Portrait Comes Home,” Richmond Times-Dispatch (January 15, 1967), p. 23.
Research Collections:
A collection of letters Roane penned under a pseudonym for publication in the Chronicle newspaper in 1788; and the Enquirer newspaper, 1819-1821, as well as selected correspondence, 1815-1821, were published in The John B. Branch Historical Papers of Randolph-Macon College in 1905 (vol. 2, no. 1). They are available online in a searchable format in Hathitrust. Correspondents are Edmund Randolph, William H. Roane, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Archibald Thweatt.
Founders Online from the National Archives and Records Administration provides access to 30+ pieces of Spencer Roane correspondence, 1784-1822, in the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, the Papers of James Madison, and the Papers of James Monroe.
Library of Virginia (Personal Papers Collection)
Richmond, Va.
Roane Family Papers, 1795-1841, parts I and IV.
Part I: 9 letters and a bill of complaint.
Principal correspondents are William H. Roane and his father Spencer Roane; letter from Patrick Henry to his daughter Anne Roane (1795), wife of Spencer, and a letter from John Tyler to Senator William Henry Roane (1840). “Political matters are the primary topic of the correspondence, but there is incidental mention of family life, education, and heath, as well as comments on the progress of the construction at the University of Virginia. The court suit deals with the portion of the estate of Patrick Henry to which the Roanes were entitled.”
Part IV: Clippings concerning Spencer Roane, Edmund Ruffin, and various plantations.
Commission as judge of the general court, 1789 November 20.
Virginia Museum of History and Culture
Richmond, Va.
Harrison Family Papers, 1756-1893, section 2, correspondence, 1802-1821, of Spencer Roane; 14 items.
Description from finding aid: Correspondence with William Brockenbrough (concerning land belonging to the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia), daughter Eliza (Roane) Ruffin McDonald, Edmund Randolph (concerning George Wythe as judge of the Virginia Superior Court of Chancery for the Richmond District), son William Henry Roane (at Norfolk, Va.), John Taylor (concerning Thomas Ritchie and Taylor’s pamphlets Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated [Richmond, 1820] and Tyranny Unmasked [Washington, D.C., 1822]) and Edmund Winston ([imperfect] of “Red Hill,” Charlotte County, Va.).”