Morrison Waite
Morrison Waite | |
---|---|
7th Chief Justice of the United States | |
In office March 4, 1874 – March 23, 1888[1] | |
Nominated by | Ulysses S. Grant |
Preceded by | Salmon P. Chase |
Succeeded by | Melville Fuller |
Member of the Ohio House of Representatives from Lucas and Henry Counties | |
In office 1849–1850 | |
Preceded by | Freeborn Potter |
Succeeded by | Samuel H. Steedman |
Mayor of Maumee, Ohio | |
In office March 31, 1846 – March 30, 1847 | |
Preceded by | Thomas Clark 2nd |
Succeeded by | John C. Allen |
Personal details | |
Born | Morrison Remick Waite November 29, 1816 Lyme, Connecticut, U.S. |
Died | March 23, 1888 Washington, D.C., U.S. | (aged 71)
Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery |
Political party |
|
Spouse |
Amelia Champlin Warner
(m. 1840) |
Children | 4 |
Education | Yale College (BA) |
Signature | |
Morrison Remick "Mott" Waite (November 29, 1816 – March 23, 1888) was an American attorney, jurist, and politician from
Born in Lyme, Connecticut, Waite established a legal practice in Toledo, Ohio, after graduating from Yale University. As a member of the Whig Party, Waite won election to the Ohio House of Representatives. An opponent of slavery, he helped establish the Ohio Republican Party. He served as a counsel in the Alabama Claims and presided over the 1873 Ohio constitutional convention.
After the May 1873 death of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, President Ulysses S. Grant underwent a prolonged search for Chase's successor. With the backing of Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano, Grant nominated Waite in January 1874. The nomination of the relatively obscure Waite was poorly received by some prominent politicians, but the Senate unanimously confirmed Waite and he took office in March 1874. Despite some support for his nomination, he declined to run for president in the 1876 election, arguing that the Supreme Court should not serve as a mere stepping stone to higher office. He served on the court until his death of pneumonia in 1888.
Waite did not emerge as an important intellectual force on the Supreme Court, but he was well regarded as an administrator and conciliator. He sought a balance between federal and state power and joined with most other Justices in narrowly interpreting the Reconstruction Amendments. His majority opinion in Munn v. Illinois upheld government regulation of grain elevators and railroads and influenced constitutional understandings of government regulation. He also helped establish the legal concept of corporate personhood in the United States. However in the Civil Rights Cases[2] he sided with a majority to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which had prohibited discrimination in access to public services, that was not restored until the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Early life and education
Morrison Remick Waite was born on November 29, 1816, at Lyme, Connecticut, the son of Henry Matson Waite, an attorney, and his wife Maria Selden. His father later was appointed as a judge of the Superior Court and associate judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, serving 1834–1854; and appointed as chief justice of the latter from 1854 to 1857. Morrison had a brother Richard, with whom he later practiced law.[3] His ancestors hailed from England and were New Englanders.[4]
Waite attended
Soon afterward Waite moved to Maumee, Ohio, where he read law in the office of Samuel L. Young. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, and went into practice with Young. The law firm became prominent in business and property law.[8] Waite was elected mayor of Maumee, and served from 1846 to 1847.
Marriage and family
He married Amelia Champlin Warner on September 21, 1840 in Hartford, Connecticut. They had three sons together: Henry Seldon, Christopher Champlin, and Edward Tinker; and a daughter Mary Frances Waite.
Political and legal career
In 1850, Waite and his family moved to Toledo, where he set up a branch office of his law firm with Young. Waite 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.[8] One of his partners in Toledo was George P. Estey, a man from New Hampshire who served as a Union Army general during the American Civil War.
An active member of the
In 1871, Waite received an invitation to represent the United States (along with William M. Evarts and Caleb Cushing) 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.[9] In 1872, he was unanimously selected to preside over the Ohio 1873 constitutional convention.[7]
Chief Justice of the United States, 1874–1888
Nomination
President
After ruling out a promotion of a sitting
The nomination was not well received in political circles. The former Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, remarked of Waite that, "It is a wonder that Grant did not pick up some old acquaintance, who was a stage driver or bartender, for the place," and the political journal The Nation, said "Mr Waite stands in the front-rank of second-rank lawyers." Nationwide sentiment, however, was relief that a non-divisive and competent choice had been made, and Waite was confirmed unanimously as Chief Justice on January 21, 1874, receiving his commission the same day.[11][12] Waite took the oaths of office on March 4, 1874.[12][13]
Tenure
As 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."[14] During Waite's 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. However, Waite demonstrated an ability to get his brethren to reach decisions and write opinions without delay. His own work habits and output were formidable: he drafted one-third of these opinions.[14]
In matters of regulation over economic activity, he supported broad national authority, stating his opinion that federal commerce powers must "keep pace with the progress of the country." In the same vein, a primary theme in his opinions was the balance of federal and state authority.[14] These opinions influenced Supreme Court jurisprudence well into the 20th century.[12]
In the cases that grew out of the
The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these 'unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.' Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States. It is no more the duty or within the power of the United States to punish for a conspiracy to falsely imprison or murder within a State, than it would be to punish for false imprisonment or murder itself.
He concluded that "We may suspect that race was the cause of the hostility but is it not so averred."
Thus, the court overturned the convictions of three men accused of massacring at least 105 blacks in the
Waite believed that white moderates should set the rules of racial relations in the South. But, in reality, those states were not prepared to protect African Americans. They did not prosecute most
Waite's social and political orientation was also apparent in the Court's response to claims by other groups. In
In his opinion in Munn v. Illinois (1877), one of six Granger cases involving Populist-inspired state legislation to fix maximum rates chargeable by grain elevators and railroads, Waite wrote that when a business or private property was "affected with a public interest", it was subject to governmental regulation. Thus, the Court ruled against charges that Granger laws encroached upon private property rights without due process of law and conflicted with the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, this opinion was often regarded as a milestone in the growth of federal government regulation.[15] In particular, New Dealers in the Franklin Roosevelt administration looked to Munn v. Illinois for guidance in interpreting due process, as well as the Commerce and Contract Clauses.[citation needed]
Waite concurred with the majority in the
In 1876, amid speculation about a third term for President Grant, who had been tainted by scandals, some Republicans turned to Waite. They believed he was a better presidential nominee for the Republican Party. However, Waite refused, announcing "my duty [i]s not to make it a stepping stone to someone else but to preserve its purity and make my own name as honorable as that of any of my predecessors."[
As Chief Justice, Waite swore in Presidents
Role in corporate personhood controversy
In 1885, S. W. Sanderson, who was the Chief Legal Advisor for the Southern Pacific Railroad, decided to sue Santa Clara County in California because it was trying to regulate the railroad's activity. His claim, in part, was that because a railroad was a 'person' under the Constitution, local governments couldn't 'discriminate' against it by having different laws and taxes in different places.
When
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does.[17]
Before publication, Davis wrote a letter to Waite, dated May 26, 1886, to make sure his headnote was correct, to which Waite replied:
I think your mem. in the California Railroad Tax cases expresses with sufficient accuracy what was said before the argument began. I leave it with you to determine whether anything need be said about it in the report inasmuch as we avoided meeting the constitutional question in the decision.[4]
Hence this dictum in the headnote and the Waite reply changed the course of history and how
Thomas Hartmann, in his book Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and Theft of Human Rights, has the following to say:[18]
In these two sentences (according to the conventional wisdom), Waite weakened the kind of democratic republic the original authors of the Constitution had envisioned, and set the stage for the future worldwide damage of our environmental, governmental, and cultural commons. The plutocracy that had arisen with the East India Company in 1600, and been fought back by America's Founders, had gained a tool that was to allow them, in the coming decades, to once again gain control of most of North America, and then the world. Ironically, of the 307 Fourteenth Amendment cases brought before the Supreme Court in the years between his proclamation and 1910, only 19 dealt with African Americans: 288 were suits brought by corporations seeking the rights of natural persons.
Death
Waite died unexpectedly of
Published reports indicated the Chief Justice would be buried in a family plot he had purchased in Forest Hill Cemetery, but he was not interred there.[21][22] Instead, he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, in Toledo, Ohio.
Waite, who had financial difficulties during his service as Chief Justice, left a very small estate that was insufficient to support his widow and daughters. Members of the organized Bar in Washington and New York raised money to create two funds for the benefit of Waite's family members.[23]
On March 28, 1888 a House Funeral in the capitol building was held for the passing of Morrison Waite. In attendance at the funeral were President Grover Cleveland, First Lady Frances Cleveland, the Cabinet, and fellow Supreme Court justices.[24]
Legacy
Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter said of Waite:
He did not confine the constitution within the limits of his own experience. ... The disciplined and disinterested lawyer in him transcended the bounds of the environment within which he moved and the views of the client whom he served at the bar.[25]
- Waite High School (Toledo, Ohio) is named in his honor.
See also
- Corporate personality
- Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
- List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
- List of United States Supreme Court justices by time in office
- List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Waite Court
- List of Skull and Bones members
References
- ^ "Justices 1789 to Present". Washington, D.C.: Supreme Court of the United States. Retrieved February 14, 2022.
- ^ 109 U.S. 3 (1883)
- ^ Kens & Johnson 2012 p.16
- ^ https://www.google.com/books/edition/Family_Histories_and_Genealogies/JZVQAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=waite%20england
- ^ *"Bonesmen 1833–1899". Fleshing Out Skull and Bones. Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2011.
- ^ "Supreme Court Justices Who Are Phi Beta Kappa Members" Archived September 28, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed October 4, 2009
- ^ ISBN 9780816067398.
- ^ a b Kens & Johnson 2012 p. 17
- ^ a b Kens & Johnson 2012 p.18
- ^ Kens & Johnson 2012, pp. 1–2
- ^ "Morrison Waite". Federal Judicial Center. December 12, 2009. Archived from the original on May 7, 2012. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
- ^ Oyez.org. Archivedfrom the original on May 19, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
- ^ "Oaths of Office Taken by the Chief Justices". Supreme Court of the United States. Archived from the original on June 6, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f Grand Concourse, The Ohio Judicial Center, Supreme Court of Ohio Archived July 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ariens, Michael. "Supreme Court Justices Morrison Waite (1816–1888)". Michael Ariens website. Archived from the original on February 6, 2012. Retrieved May 22, 2012.
- ISBN 9780870206351. Archivedfrom the original on December 28, 2019. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ^ 118 U.S. 394 (1886) – Official court Syllabus in the United States Reports
- ^ "The Theft of Human Rights, chapter excerpt from Unequal Protection". February 11, 2011. Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved August 6, 2016.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved August 16, 2023.
- ^ Proceedings of the Illinois State Bar Association ...: Annual Meeting. 1888.
- ^ "Christensen, George A. (1983) Here Lies the Supreme Court: Gravesites of the Justices, Yearbook". Archived from the original on September 3, 2005. Retrieved November 24, 2013. Supreme Court Historical Society.
- ^ Christensen, George A., Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited, Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 17 – 41 (February 19, 2008), University of Alabama.
- ^ Ira Brad Matetsky, "The Waite Funds Archived February 21, 2015, at the Wayback Machine", 18 Green Bag 2d 173 (Winter 2015).
- ^ Andrew Glass, "[1] Archived May 5, 2019, at the Wayback Machine", 19 Politico (March 2019).
- ISBN 9781469632445. Archivedfrom the original on November 8, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
Sources
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Waite, Morrison Remick". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Morrison Remick Waite at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
- Kens, Paul; Johnson, Herbert A. (2012). The Supreme Court under Morrison R. Waite, 1874-1888. University of South Carolina Press.
Further reading
- Abraham, Henry J. (1992). Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court (3rd ed.). New York: ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
- Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.). (ISBN 1-56802-126-7.
- Frank, John P. (1995). Friedman, Leon; Israel, Fred L. (eds.). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Chelsea House Publishers. ISBN 0-7910-1377-4.
- Hall, Kermit L., ed. (1992). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505835-6.
- Magrath, C. Peter, ed. (1963). Morrison R. Waite: The Triumph of Character. New York: Macmillan.
- Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
- Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Publishing. pp. 590. ISBN 0-8153-1176-1.