IV. Reconstruction & the Gilded Age
1864–1910
The Chase, Waite & Fuller Courts. Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment, Plessy, and the age of industrial capital.
Noah H. Swayne
Lincoln's first appointment — an Ohio abolitionist who freed his inherited slaves and moved north. Lobbied hard for the Chief Justiceship twice and got it neither time.
Samuel F. Miller
A physician turned lawyer, considered by many contemporaries the dominant intellect of the post-Civil War Court. Wrote the pivotal Slaughterhouse Cases opinion.
David Davis
Lincoln's campaign manager and longtime friend. Wrote Ex parte Milligan, the landmark protecting civilian rights during wartime — then left the Court for the Senate.
Stephen J. Field
The longest-serving justice of the 19th century — a colorful California pioneer who championed economic liberty and survived an assassination attempt by a former colleague.
Salmon P. Chase
Lincoln's rival-turned-Treasury Secretary and Chief Justice. Presided over Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial and harbored presidential ambitions to the end.
William Strong
A Pennsylvania jurist appointed amid the Legal Tender controversy, whose vote helped reverse the Court's own year-old precedent. Retired at the height of his powers to set an example for ailing colleagues.
Joseph P. Bradley
The decisive vote on the Electoral Commission of 1877 that resolved the Hayes-Tilden election. His role remains one of history's great political mysteries.
Ward Hunt
Presided over the trial of Susan B. Anthony for voting. Suffered a paralyzing stroke in 1879 but refused to resign for three years, until Congress passed a special pension act.
Morrison R. Waite
A capable Ohio lawyer with no prior judicial experience who proved a solid steward of the Court through Reconstruction's retreat and the Gilded Age.
John Marshall Harlan
The "Great Dissenter" — a former slaveholder who became the Court's most passionate advocate for racial equality, dissenting in Plessy v. Ferguson with prophetic force.
William B. Woods
A transplanted Ohioan and Union general who settled in Alabama — the first justice appointed from a former Confederate state after the Civil War.
Stanley Matthews
Confirmed by a single vote — the narrowest margin in Court history — amid charges he was too close to railroad interests. Then wrote Yick Wo v. Hopkins, a foundation of equal protection law.
Horace Gray
A Harvard-trained legal scholar who institutionalized the use of law clerks at the Supreme Court — the first justice to employ one.
Samuel Blatchford
A workhorse of admiralty and patent law who wrote more than 400 opinions in eleven years and courted almost no controversy doing it.
Lucius Q.C. Lamar
A former Confederate officer and diplomat celebrated in Kennedy's Profiles in Courage for his political bravery during Reconstruction.
Melville W. Fuller
A Chicago lawyer who surprised skeptics with an effective 22-year tenure, presiding over the transformative era of industrial capitalism and the Insular Cases.
David J. Brewer
Born in Asia Minor to missionary parents and nephew of Justice Field — the only uncle-nephew pair to serve together in Court history.
Henry B. Brown
Author of the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine that stood for 58 years.
George Shiras Jr.
A Pittsburgh railroad lawyer who never held public office before the Court — and retired at 71 exactly as he had promised, a rarity in Court history.
Howell E. Jackson
A Tennessee Democrat appointed by a Republican president. Rose from his deathbed to cast a vote in the income tax case — and died five months later.
Edward D. White
The first sitting Associate Justice elevated to Chief Justice. Devised the "rule of reason" in antitrust law and led the Court through World War I.
Rufus W. Peckham
Author of Lochner v. New York (1905), the infamous "freedom of contract" ruling that became shorthand for judicial overreach in economic regulation.
Joseph McKenna
The son of Irish immigrants who served 26 years despite openly doubting his own qualifications — and stayed years past his capacity, forcing the Court to manage around him.