This article is about the Lincoln scholar and former Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. For other people named "Frank Williams", see Frank Williams (disambiguation).
Frank J. Williams
Williams (second from the right in the line facing the camera) shown with other judges on the Court of Military Commission Review
Frank J. Williams (born August 24, 1940) is a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, a notable Abraham Lincoln scholar and author, and a justice of the Military Commission Review Panel.[1][2]
He served as town moderator of Richmond, Rhode Island, and town solicitor. Governor Lincoln Almond appointed Williams to the Supreme Court in 1995. He was elevated to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2001.[citation needed]
Beach access ruling
Williams ruled in a 1997 case involving public access to the Narragansett Town Beach.[5] It had long been accepted that the Rhode Island Constitution guarantees free access to all state shorelines by means of walking along the shoreline below the high tide line (a right called "lateral access").[5] Activists at the Narragansett Town beach argued that this right also includes unobstructed access from the land (called "perpendicular access").[5]
Williams sided with the Town of Narragansett, ruling in court that Rhode Island's Constitution "provides absolutely no indication that a right of perpendicular access across the property of others exists," and therefore the town was within their rights to charge an access fee. As of 2021, Narragansett Town Beach remains the only public beach in the state which charges for beach access.[5]
Williams has been involved with numerous aspects of Abraham Lincoln scholarship and collection for much of his life, beginning in his own boyhood. He recalled "I used to spend my 25 cents for lunch money on used Lincoln books",[6] including Lincoln the Unknown by Andrew Carnegie and the multi-volume Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years by Carl Sandburg.[7] This eventually grew into a collection of thousands of books, documents, pieces of artwork, and other items that he kept in his home library.[6][8]
Williams was president of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Lincoln Group of Boston, and the Ulysses S. Grant Association, and was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.[9] After disputes within the Abraham Lincoln Association prompted Williams, Harold Holzer, and others to leave the group in the mid-1990s,[10] Williams served for 23 years as the founding chair of The Lincoln Forum, and is now that organization's chairman emeritus.[11] In 2005, Williams received The Lincoln Forum's Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.[12]
In 2017, he and his wife Virginia donated their collection of Lincoln- and Civil War-related books and other materials to Mississippi State University. The collection, now known as The Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana, is subdivided into two collections: The Lincoln Book and Pamphlet Collection, and the Civil War/Collateral Book and Pamphlet Collection. Earlier, while president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, Williams had been involved in efforts to move Grant's papers to Mississippi State from Southern Illinois University.[14][15][16]
While on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Williams estimated that he had used in his rulings 100 quotes attributed to Lincoln.[6]
Williams is the author of Judging Lincoln[8] and Lincoln as Hero.[17] He is the co-editor of the following essay collections: Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Legal Career of America's Greatest President; The Mary Lincoln Enigma: Historians on America's Most Controversial First Lady;[18]Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President; The Living Lincoln; The Lincoln Assassination Riddle: Revisiting the Crime of the Nineteenth Century; and The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory.[19]
Later career
Frank J. Williams stepped down from the Rhode Island Supreme Court at the end of December 2009 and has lectured at several universities and institutes, most notably at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. Williams is also an accomplished amateur chef, and appeared as a guest on the cooking show, Ciao Italia, with Mary Ann Esposito.[20]
References
^ abc"Military Commission Review Panel Takes Oath of Office". Department of Defense. 2004-09-22. Archived from the original on 2008-10-23. Retrieved 2008-11-02. Chief Justice Frank Williams, chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Williams was as an associate justice of the Superior Court of Rhode Island from 1995 to 2001. He served as an Army captain in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantry Badge, and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Silver Star for Valor. He earned his law degree from Boston University in 1970 and a master's degree in taxation from Bryant College in 1986.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
