1.
Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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United States Reports
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The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. Opinions of the court in each case, prepended with a prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. For lawyers, citations to United States Reports are the reference for Supreme Court decisions. Following Bluebook, a commonly accepted citation protocol, the case Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, for example, would be cited as, Brown v. Bd. of Educ. The early volumes of the United States Reports were originally published privately by the individual Supreme Court Reporters, as was the practice in England, the reports were designated by the names of the reporters who compiled them, Dallass Reports, Cranchs Reports, etc. The decisions appearing in the entire first volume and most of the volume of United States Reports are not decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period, alexander Dallas, a lawyer and journalist, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume and this would come to be known as the first volume of Dallas Reports. Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania decisions in a volume of his Reports. When the Supreme Court began hearing cases, he added those cases to his reports, starting towards the end of the volume,2 Dallas Reports. Dallas went on to publish a total of four volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter, when the Supreme Court moved to Washington, D. C. in 1800, Dallas remained in Philadelphia, and William Cranch took over as unofficial reporter of decisions. In 1817, Congress made the Reporter of Decisions an official, salaried position, in 1874, the U. S. government began to fund the reports publication, creating the United States Reports. The earlier, private reports were retroactively numbered volumes 1–90 of the United States Reports, therefore, decisions appearing in these early reports have dual citation forms, one for the volume number of the United States Reports, and one for the set of nominate reports. For example, the citation to McCulloch v. Maryland is 17 U. S.316
3.
Morrison Waite
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Morrison Remick Mott Waite was an attorney and politician in Ohio. He served as the seventh Chief Justice of the United States from 1874 to his death in 1888, Morrison Remick Waite was born in 1816 at Lyme, Connecticut, the son of Henry Matson Waite, an attorney, and his wife Maria Selden. Morrison had a brother Richard, with whom he practiced law. Waite attended Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut, where one of his classmates was Lyman Trumbull and he graduated from Yale University in 1837 in a class with Samuel J. Tilden, who later was the 1876 Democratic presidential nominee. As a student at Yale, Waite became a member of the Skull and Bones, soon afterward Waite moved to Maumee, Ohio, where he studied law as an apprentice in the office of Samuel L. Young. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, and went into practice with his mentor and he was elected to one term as mayor of Maumee. He married Amelia Champlin Warner on September 21,1840 in Hartford and they had three sons together, Henry Seldon, Christopher Champlin, and Edward Tinker, and a daughter Mary Frances Waite. In 1850, Waite and his moved to Toledo, where he set up a branch office of his law firm with Young. He soon came to be recognized as a leader of the state bar, when Young retired in 1856, Waite built a prosperous new firm with his brother Richard Waite. An active member of the Whig Party, Waite was elected to a term in the Ohio Senate in 1849–1850 and he made two unsuccessful bids for the United States Senate, and was offered a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. In the mid-1850s, because of his opposition to slavery, Waite joined the fledgling Republican Party, in 1871, Waite received a surprise invitation to represent the United States as counsel before the Alabama Tribunal at Geneva. In his first national role, he gained acclaim when he won a $15 million award from the tribunal, in 1872, he was selected to preside over the Ohio 1873 constitutional convention. President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Waite as Chief Justice on January 19,1874, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase died in May 1873, and Grant waited six months before first offering the seat in November to the powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who declined. He finally submitted his nomination of Attorney General George H. Williams to the Senate on December 1, a month later, however, Grant withdrew the nomination, at Williams request, after charges of corruption made his confirmation all but certain to fail. Finally, after persistent lobbying from Ohioans, including Interior Secretary Columbus Delano, on January 19,1874 and he was notified of his nomination by a telegram. The nomination was not well received in political circles, Waite took the oaths of office on March 4,1874. Chief Justice Waite never became a significant intellectual force on the Supreme Court, but his managerial and social skill, especially his good humor and sensitivity to others, helped him to maintain a remarkably harmonious and productive court. During Waites tenure, the Court decided some 3,470 cases, in part, the large number of cases decided and the variety of issues confronted reflected the lack of discretion the Court had at the time in hearing appeals from lower federal and state courts
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Nathan Clifford
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Nathan Clifford was an American statesman, diplomat and jurist, whose career culminated in a lengthy period of service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Clifford was born of old Yankee stock in Rumney, New Hampshire, to Deacon Nathaniel Clifford and Lydia Simpson Clifford and he attended the public schools of that town, then the Haverhill Academy in New Hampshire, and finally the New Hampton Literary Institute. After teaching school for a time, he studied law in the offices of Josiah Quincy III and was admitted to the bar in Maine in 1827, establishing his first practice in Newfield and it was in Newfield where he met his wife, Hannah Ayer. He served in the Maine House of Representatives from 1830 to 1834 and he was then Maine Attorney General from 1834 until 1838, when he entered national politics. Initially, Clifford ran for the Senate and lost, then, Clifford was elected as a Democrat to the 26th and 27th Congresses, serving March 4,1839, through March 3,1843, and representing the Second and then the Third District. In Washington D. C. he followed the Democratic party line on policies, Clifford was opposed to a high tariff, supported internal improvements, endorsed state banking, and was in favor of federal retrenchment. He also criticized abolition, saying that its supporters were well intentioned but denounced the “mean and incendiary schemes of political Abolitionists. ”Due to re-redistricting and political infighting, Clifford was not a candidate for re-election in 1842. In 1846, President James K. Polk appointed him 20th Attorney General of the United States after his predecessor, mason, returned to being Naval Secretary. Clifford served in Polks Cabinet from October 17,1846, to March 17,1848, Clifford resigned his post with the Justice Department to become the U. S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico, serving from March 18,1848 to September 6,1849 and it was through Clifford that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was arranged with Mexico, by which California became a part of the United States. A Whig Presidential victory meant that Clifford was recalled to the United States, following his service in the diplomatic corps, Clifford resumed the practice of law in Portland, Maine. Cliffords was a contested nomination. A perennial partisan Democrat, to the opposition Clifford seemed to be a political hack, Clifford was labeled a “doughface, ” a Northern man with Southern sympathies. Especially due to his position, anti-slavery representatives in the Senate fiercely opposed Clifford. Rather, they delayed his confirmation for thirty four days, and Clifford was confirmed on January 12,1858, by a narrow margin of 26 votes to 23 in the United States Senate. If not for the Democratic Party rallying around their candidate, the absence of two of his opponents, and the last minute change in stance by a Democratic Senator and his specialties were commercial and maritime law, Mexican land grants, and procedure and practice. Though he rarely declared any legal philosophy about the Constitution, Justice Clifford believed in a dividing line between federal and state authority. ”Clifford supported a mechanical jurisprudence adhering to the strict text of the Constitution. Clifford was a Unionist, but distrusted federal authority and this meant that during the American Civil War he generally supported the government’s policies, although he opposed the use of arbitrary powers
5.
Samuel Freeman Miller
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Samuel Freeman Miller was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court who served from 1862 to 1890. He was a physician and lawyer, born in Richmond, Kentucky, Miller was the son of yeoman farmers. He earned a degree in 1838 from Transylvania University in Lexington. While practicing medicine for a decade, he studied the law on his own and was admitted to the bar in 1847, favoring the abolition of slavery, which was prevalent in Kentucky, he supported the Whigs in Kentucky. Miller moved to Keokuk, in Iowa, a more amenable to his views on slavery. Active in Hawkeye politics, he supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, Lincoln nominated Miller to the Supreme Court on July 16,1862, after the beginning of the American Civil War. His reputation was so high that Miller was confirmed half an hour after the Senate received notice of his nomination and his opinions strongly favored Lincolns positions, and he upheld his wartime suspension of habeas corpus and trials by military commission. After the war, his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment—he wrote the opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases—limited the effectiveness of the amendment. In Ex Parte Yarbrough,110 U. S.651, however, Miller held that the government had broad authority to act to protect black voters from violence by the Ku Klux Klan. Miller also supported the use of federal power under the Commerce Clause to trump state regulations. Justice Miller wrote more opinions than any other Supreme Court Justice, after the 1876 presidential election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, Miller served on the electoral commission that awarded the disputed electoral votes to the Republican Hayes. In the 1880s, his name was floated as a Republican candidate for president, Miller, a religious liberal, belonged to the Unitarian Church and served as President of the Unitarians National Conference. Following his death, his funeral was held at Keokuks First Unitarian Church and he died in Washington, D. C. while still a member of the court. He is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Keokuk, Iowa, the Slaughter-House Cases,83 U. S.36 Murdock v. Memphis,87 U. S.20 Wall. 590590 United States v. Kagama,118 U. S.375 In re Burrus,136 U. S.586 Justice Samuel Freeman Miller House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Ross, Michael A. Hill Country Doctor, The Early Life and Career of Supreme Court Justice Samuel F. Miller in Kentucky, 1816-1849, The Filson History Quarterly, Vol.71, 430–446. Ross, Michael A. Justice of Shattered Dreams, Samuel Freeman Miller, baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press. Justice Millers Reconstruction, The Slaughter-House Cases, Health Codes, and Civil Rights in New Orleans, 1861-1873
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Stephen Johnson Field
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Stephen Johnson Field was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from March 10,1863, prior to this appointment, he was the fifth Chief Justice of California. Born in Haddam, Connecticut, he was the sixth of the nine children of David Dudley Field I, a Congregationalist minister, henry Martyn Field a prominent clergyman and travel writer. He grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and went to Turkey at thirteen with his sister Emilia and her missionary husband and he received a BA from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1837. While attending Williams College he was one of the original Founders of Delta Upsilon Fraternity, in California, Fields legal practice boomed and he was elected alcalde, a form of mayor and justice of the peace under the old Mexican rule of law, of Marysville. The voters sent him to the California State Assembly in 1850 to represent Yuba County and his successful legal practice led to his election to the California Supreme Court in 1857, serving six years. During his time on the Supreme Court of California, Field had a coat made with pockets large enough to hold two pistols so that he could shoot at his various enemies through the pockets. In 1858 he was challenged to a duel by a fellow Judge but at the dueling ground, neither man fired his gun. In 1859 Field replaced the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, David S. Terry because Judge Terry killed a United States Senator from California in a duel. Oddly, Field and Terrys paths crossed again 30 years later when Field, acting in his capacity as a judge of the 9th Federal Circuit Court, ruled against Terry in a convoluted divorce case. Seeking revenge, Terry attempted to kill Field in 1889 near Stockton, California but was shot dead by Justice Fields bodyguard. Ironically, legal issues arising from the killing of Mr. Terry came before the Supreme Court in the 1890 habeas corpus case of In re Neagle. On March 6,1863, Abraham Lincoln appointed Field to the newly created tenth Supreme Court seat, the appointment would also give the Court someone familiar with real estate and mining issues. Field was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 10,1863, Fields vocal advocacy of substantive due process was illustrated in his dissents to the Slaughterhouse Cases and Munn v. Illinois. In the Slaughter-House Cases, Justice Fields dissent focused on the Privileges or Immunities clause, in both Munn v Illinois and Mugler v Kansas, Justice Field based his dissent on the protection of property interests by the Due Process clause. One of Fields most notable opinions was his majority opinion in Pennoyer v. Neff and his views on due process were eventually adopted by the courts majority after he left the Supreme Court. In other cases he helped end the tax, limited antitrust law. On racial issues, Justice Field is regarded to have had a poor record
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Joseph P. Bradley
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Joseph Philo Bradley was an American jurist best known for his service on the United States Supreme Court, and on the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 presidential election. The son of Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley, Bradley was born to humble beginnings in Berne, New York and he attended local schools and began teaching at the age of 16. In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced young Joseph Bradley $250 to study for the ministry at Rutgers University, while at Rutgers, he decided to study law instead, graduating in 1836. After graduation, he was made Principal of the Millstone Academy, not long afterward, he was persuaded by his Rutgers classmate Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to join him in Newark and pursue legal studies at the Office of the Collector of the Port of Newark. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, Bradley began in private practice in New Jersey, specializing in patent and railroad law, and he became very prominent in these fields and quite wealthy. Bradley remained dedicated to self-study throughout his life and collected an extensive library and he married Mary Hornblower in Newark in 1844. As a commercial litigator, Bradley argued many cases before various federal courts, Bradley was nominated on February 7 and was confirmed by the Senate on March 21, taking his seat on the court as an Associate Justice that same day. On moving to Washington, Bradley purchased the home that had belonged to Stephen A. Douglas. Bradley remained on the bench until 1891, when he became greatly weakened by disease and he took his seat on the bench in October of that year, but was forced to retire a few weeks later by failing health. He died a few months later, Bradley took a broad view of the national governments powers under the Commerce Clause but interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment somewhat narrowly, as did much of the rest of the court at the time. He authored the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 but was among the four dissenters in the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873 and his interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in both cases remained the basis for subsequent rulings through the modern era. This is the law of the Creator and this resulted in the federal governments bringing the case on appeal to the Supreme Court as United States v. Cruikshank. The courts ruling on this case meant that the government would not intervene on paramilitary. Bradley dissented in Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad v. Minnesota, bradleys opinion in this case is echoed in modern arguments regarding judicial activism. Bradley also wrote the opinion in Hans v. Louisiana, holding that a state could not be sued in a court by one of its own citizens. As an individual Supreme Court Justice, Bradley decided In re Guiteau, a petition for habeas corpus filed on behalf of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield. Guiteaus lawyers argued that he had been tried in the District of Columbia because, although Guiteau shot Garfield in Washington. Bradley denied the petition in an opinion and Guiteau was executed
8.
Ward Hunt
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Ward Hunt, was an American jurist and politician. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1868 to 1869, and he was the son of Montgomery Hunt, long-time Cashier of the Bank of Utica. He was a classmate of Horatio Seymour at the Oxford and Geneva Academies, and graduated from Union College in 1828, where he was an early member of the Kappa Alpha Society. Then he studied law with Juge James Gould at Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut and with Hiram Denio in Utica and he was a Democratic member from Oneida County of the New York State Assembly in 1839, and was Mayor of Utica in 1844. In 1848, he joined the Free Soil Party, and in 1855 he was among the founders of the New York Republican Party, Hunt became Chief Judge in 1868 after the sudden death of Chief Judge William B. Wright. In 1870, he was legislated out of office, but was appointed one of the Commissioners of Appeals, Hunt was a friend and patron of political boss Roscoe Conkling, who was an associate of President Ulysses S. Grant. When Samuel Nelson retired from the Supreme Court, Conkling asked Grant to nominate Hunt for the vacancy, Hunt was nominated on December 3,1872, confirmed by the U. S. Senate on December 11, and took his seat in January 1873. Hunt had little impact on the court, siding with the majority in all but 22 cases in his ten years on the job and his most notable contribution came while riding circuit in New York, where he presided over The United States v. Susan B. Citing the 14th Amendment, Anthony argued that she was guaranteed the right to vote and had not broken the law when she voted in the 1872 election. Hunt found that Anthony had indeed broken the law and fined Anthony $100, in 1878, Hunt suffered a severe paralyzing stroke, which prevented him from attending court sessions or rendering opinions. Nonetheless he did not retire, because at the time in order to retire with a pension a person had to put in at least ten years of government service. To encourage him to retire, Congress passed a provision under which he could receive a pension if he would retire within 30 days. Hunt did so on January 27,1882, and enjoyed his pension until his death in Washington and he was buried at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Utica
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John Marshall Harlan
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John Marshall Harlan was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served as an associate justice on the U. S. Supreme Court. Harlan was born at Harlans Station,5 miles west of Danville, Kentucky on Salt River Road and he attended school in Frankfort and then graduated from Centre College. Harlan entered Kentucky politics in 1851, and served a variety of positions, most notably Attorney General of Kentucky, when the American Civil War broke out, Harlan strongly supported the Union, although he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and supported slavery. However, after the election of Ulysses S. Grant as President in 1868, he reversed his views, in 1877, Harlan was appointed a member of the Supreme Court. A Christian fundamentalist, Harlans Christian beliefs strongly shaped his views during his tenure as Supreme Court justice and these dissents, among others, led to his nickname of The Great Dissenter. Harlan died in 1911, at the age of 78, John had several older brothers, possibly including a mulatto half-brother, Robert James Harlan, born in 1816 into slavery. His father raised him in his own household and had the boy tutored by Richard and James Harlan, According to historian Allyson Hobbs, Robert became highly successful, making a fortune in the California Gold Rush before returning east and settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. He remained close to the other Harlans, she suggests this might have influenced his half-brother John Marshall Harlan, after attending school in Frankfort, John Harlan enrolled at Centre College. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and graduated with honors, though his mother wanted Harlan to become a merchant, James insisted that his son follow him into the legal profession, and Harlan joined his fathers law practice in 1852. Harlan finished his education in his fathers law office. A member of the Whig Party like his father, Harlan got a start in politics. He served in the post for the eight years, which gave him a statewide presence. With the Whig Partys dissolution in the early 1850s, Harlan shifted his affiliation to the Know Nothings, during the 1860 presidential election, Harlan supported the Constitutional Union candidate, John Bell. In the secession crisis that followed Abraham Lincolns victory, Harlan sought to prevent Kentucky from seceding. When the state voted to create a new militia, Harlan organized and led a company of zouaves before recruiting a company that was mustered into the service as the 10th Kentucky Infantry. Harlan served in the Western Theater of the American Civil War until the death of his father James in February 1863, at that time, Harlan resigned his commission as colonel and returned to Frankfort to support his family. Three weeks after leaving the army, Harlan was nominated by the Union Party as their nominee to become the Attorney General of Kentucky, campaigning on a platform of vigorous prosecution of the war, he won the election by a considerable margin. As attorney general for the state, Harlan issued legal opinions, after losing a bid for re-election as attorney general, Harlan joined the Republican Party in 1868
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