Joseph Hubley Ashton (March 11, 1836 – March 14, 1907) was a professor in the Georgetown University Law School from 1870 to 1874.1
He was born in Philadelphia and earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1854, followed by a masters degree in 1858. From 1861 to 1864, he was Assistant District Attorney for the Eastern district of Pennsylvania and in 1865 became Assistant Attorney General of the United States. At times during 1868 and 1869, he was acting Attorney General. In 1870, he joined the faculty of the Georgetown University Law School as professor of pleading, practice and evidence and Georgetown awarded him the degree of LL.D. in 1872. In 1878, he was one of the founders of the American Bar Association.
A leading authority on international law, he served as counsel for the United States government before the Venezuela Claims Commission in 1885 and between 1890 and 1897, he acted as the legal representative of the Chinese government before the Supreme Court in cases brought under the Chinese exclusion laws.2
- 1Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907, its founders, benefactors, officers, instructors and alumni. James Stanislaus Easby-Smith. New York : Lewis, 1907
- 2Men of mark in America : ideals of American life told in biographies of eminent living Americans. Merrill Edwards Gates. Washington, D.C. : Men of Mark Publishing Company, 1905
