Rose, Uriah Milton (1834-1913), was an American lawyer who became known both nationally and in his home state of Arkansas as an influential law scholar. From 1917 to 2024, a statue of Rose represented Arkansas in the Statuary Hall collection in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Rose was born in Bradfordsville, Kentucky, on March 5, 1834. He earned a law degree from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1853. That year, Rose and a brother-in-law moved to Batesville, Arkansas, where they formed a law partnership.
Rose became chancellor of the Court of Chancery of Pulaski County in 1860. He worked in the position until 1863, when Union troops captured Little Rock, the state capital, in the American Civil War (1861-1865). After the war, Rose moved to Little Rock and formed a law partnership with George Watkins, a former chief justice of Arkansas. The partnership became the leading law firm in the state.
Rose was one of the founders of the American Bar Association, a private, nationwide organization of lawyers, in 1878. He served as the group’s president in 1901 and 1902. He helped to form the Arkansas State Bar Association in 1882 and to reorganize it in 1898 and 1899. Following the reorganization, Rose served as the association’s president until January 1900. President Theodore Roosevelt made Rose a delegate to the second Hague Peace Conference, held in the Netherlands in 1907. The conference helped establish international rules of warfare.
Rose’s written works include the Digest of Arkansas Reports (1867) and The Constitution of the State of Arkansas (1891), which he published with notes. Rose died in Little Rock on Aug. 12, 1913.
