Charles Evans Hughes — the American statesman, jurist, and Republican politician who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States — was born on this day — April 11, 1862 — in Glens Falls, New York.

He was an 1881 graduate of Brown University and later earned his Bachelor of Laws from Columbia Law School in 1884. Hughes was a brilliant academic, graduating from Brown at age 19 and later serving as a professor of law at Cornell University from 1891 to 1893.

Hughes’s career was marked by immense variety: he served as the Governor of New York, the U.S. Secretary of State, and was the 1916 Republican nominee for President, narrowly losing to Woodrow Wilson. As Chief Justice, he led the Supreme Court through the tumultuous era of the New Deal, famously balancing constitutional tradition with emerging social legislation.

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