Stanley Matthews (judge)

, serving from 1858 to 1861.

Union officer

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Matthews resigned as U.S. Attorney as the

In 1863, after being elected a judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati, Matthews resigned from the Union Army. Two years later, he returned to private practice. During the post-war reconstruction era, Matthews represented the railroad industry. His clients included Jay Gould.^[7]

He ran for the

Associate justice

Matthews was initially

On March 14, 1881, 10 days after taking office, President James A. Garfield re-nominated Matthews to the Court.^[8] Though a new nomination from a new president, earlier concerns about Matthews's suitability for the Court persisted, and Garfield was widely criticized for re-submitting Matthews's name.^[9] In spite of the opposition, and, although the Judiciary Committee made a recommendation to the Senate that it reject the nomination,^[11] on May 12, the Senate voted 24–23 to confirm Matthews. The vote was the closest for any successful Supreme Court nominee in U.S. Senate history;^[b] no other justice has been confirmed by a single vote.^[8][10][13]

Matthews's tenure as a member of the Supreme Court began on May 17, 1881, when he took the judicial oath, and ended March 22, 1889, upon his death.^[1][7] He was regarded as one of the more progressive justices on the Court at the time.^[13]

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

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In 1880, the city of

The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Matthews, found that the administration of the statute in question was discriminatory and that there was therefore no need to even consider whether the ordinance itself was lawful. Even though the Chinese laundry owners were usually not American citizens, the court ruled they were still entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Matthews also noted that the court had previously ruled that it was acceptable to hold administrators of the law liable when they abused their authority. He denounced the law as a blatant attempt to exclude Chinese from the laundry trade in San Francisco, and the court struck down the law, ordering dismissal of all charges against other laundry owners who had been jailed.

Personal life

In 1843, Matthews married Mary Ann "Minnie" Black. They had 10 children, four of whom died during an outbreak of scarlet fever in 1859.^[2] Over a three-week period, the outbreak claimed the lives of their three eldest sons (nine-year-old Morrison, six-year-old Stanley, and four-year-old Thomas) as well as younger daughter Mary (age two-and-a-half). Oldest daughter Isabella (seven at the time) and baby William Mortimer survived the devastating outbreak, although Isabella would die in 1868 at the age of sixteen. Their four younger children (Grace, Eva, Jane, and another son named Stanley, later called Paul) were born after the scarlet fever outbreak.^[14]

"Minnie" died in Washington, D.C., on January 22, 1885, at age 63.^[15] Matthews married Mary K. Theaker, widow of Thomas Clarke Theaker, on June 23, 1886, in New York.^[16]

Death and legacy

Matthews's health declined precipitously during 1888; he died in Washington, D.C., on March 22, 1889.^[17][18] He was survived by second wife Mary, as well as five of his children with Minnie: Mortimer, Grace, Eva, Jane, and Paul.^[19] He is interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.^[20][21]

Daughter Jane Matthews married her late father's colleague on the Court, Associate Justice Horace Gray, on June 4, 1889.^[22] Daughter Eva Lee Matthews became a schoolteacher and monastic, founding the Community of the Transfiguration, which engaged in charity work in Ohio, Hawaii and in China, leading to her liturgical commemoration in the Episcopal Church.^[23] Son Paul Clement was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey from 1915 to 1937. His son, Justice Matthews's grandson, Thomas Stanley, was editor of Time magazine from 1949 to 1953.^[24][25]

A collection of Justice Matthews's correspondence and other papers is located at the

• List of United States Supreme Court Justices who also served in Congress
• Waite Court
• Fuller Court

Notes

References

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
  .
• Bibliography, biography and location of papers, Sixth Circuit
  U.S. Court of Appeals
  .
• 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.
  ISBN 0-7910-1377-4
  .
• Furer, Howard B., ed. (1986). The Fuller Court, 1888-1910. (The Supreme Court in American Life Series.). New York: Associated Faculty Press, Inc.
  ISBN 978-0-86733-060-1
  .
• 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
  .
• Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Washington, D.C.:
  ISBN 0-87187-554-3
  .
• Stephenson, Donald Grier Jr. (2003). The Waite Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, Inc.
  ISBN 1-57607-829-9. Archived
  from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
• Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York:
  ISBN 0-8153-1176-1
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Thomas Stanley Matthews.

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Stanley Matthews

• United States Congress. "Stanley Matthews (id: M000255)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved February 14, 2008.
• Stanley Matthews at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
• Stanley Matthews at Oyez, a project of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law. Retrieved June 29, 2019.
• "Stanley Matthews". Find a Grave. Retrieved February 14, 2008.

Ohio Senate
Preceded by George Pendleton John Schiff William Converse	Member of the Ohio Senate from the 1st district 1856–1858 Served alongside: George Holmes, William Converse	Succeeded by William Hatch A. B. Langdon Charles Thomas
U.S. Senate
Preceded by John Sherman	U.S. senator (Class 3) from Ohio 1877–1879 Served alongside: Allen Thurman	Succeeded by George Pendleton
Legal offices
Preceded by Noah Swayne	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1881–1889	Succeeded by David Brewer