Melville Fuller | |
|---|---|
 Fuller,c. 1900–10 | |
| 8thChief Justice of the United States | |
| In office October 8, 1888 – July 4, 1910 | |
| Nominated by | Grover Cleveland |
| Preceded by | Morrison Waite |
| Succeeded by | Edward Douglass White |
| Member of theIllinois House of Representatives | |
| In office 1863–1865 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Melville Weston Fuller (1833-02-11)February 11, 1833 Augusta, Maine, U.S. |
| Died | July 4, 1910(1910-07-04) (aged 77) Sorrento, Maine, U.S. |
| Resting place | Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 10 |
| Education | Bowdoin College (AB) Harvard University |
| Signature |  |
Melville Weston Fuller (February 11, 1833 – July 4, 1910) was an American politician, attorney, and jurist who served as the eighthchief justice of the United States from 1888 until his death in 1910. Staunch conservatism marked his tenure on theSupreme Court, exhibited by his tendency to support unfetteredfree enterprise and to oppose broad federal power. He wrote major opinions on thefederal income tax, theCommerce Clause, andcitizenship law, and he took part in important decisions aboutracial segregation and theliberty of contract. Those rulings often faced criticism in the decades during and after Fuller's tenure, and many were later overruled or abrogated. The legal academy has generally viewed Fuller negatively, although arevisionist minority has taken a more favorable view of his jurisprudence.
Born inAugusta, Maine, Fuller established a legal practice inChicago after graduating fromBowdoin College. ADemocrat, he became involved in politics, campaigning forStephen A. Douglas in the1860 presidential election. During theCivil War, he served a single term in theIllinois House of Representatives, where he opposed the policies of PresidentAbraham Lincoln. Fuller became a prominent attorney in Chicago and was adelegate to severalDemocratic National Conventions. He declined three separate appointments offered by PresidentGrover Cleveland before accepting the nomination to succeedMorrison Waite as chief justice. Despite some voicing objections over his political past, Fuller wasconfirmed by theSenate in 1888. He served as chief justice until his death in 1910, gaining a reputation for collegiality and able administration.
Fuller's jurisprudence was conservative, focusing strongly on states' rights, limited federal power, and economic liberty. His majority opinion inPollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895) ruled a federal income tax to be unconstitutional; theSixteenth Amendment later superseded the decision. Fuller's opinion inUnited States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895) narrowly interpreted Congress's authority under the Commerce Clause, limiting the reach of theSherman Act and making government prosecution ofantitrust cases more difficult. InLochner v. New York (1905), Fuller agreed with the majority that the Constitution forbade states from enforcing wage-and-hour restrictions on businesses, contending that theDue Process Clause prevents government infringement on one's liberty to control one's property and business affairs. Fuller joined the majority inPlessy v. Ferguson (1896), in which the Court articulated the doctrine ofseparate but equal and upheldJim Crow laws. He argued in theInsular Cases that residents of theterritories are entitled to constitutional rights, but he dissented when, inUnited States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the majority ruled in favor ofbirthright citizenship.
Many of Fuller's decisions did not stand the test of time. His views on economic liberty were squarely rejected by the Court during theNew Deal era, and thePlessy opinion was unanimously reversed inBrown v. Board of Education (1954). Fuller's historical reputation has been generally unfavorable, with many scholars arguing that he was overly deferential to corporations and the wealthy. While a resurgence of conservative legal thought has brought Fuller new defenders, an increase in racial awareness has also led to new scrutiny of his vote inPlessy. In 2021,Kennebec County commissioners voted unanimously to remove a statue of Fuller from public land with the aim of dissociating the county from racial segregation.
Melville Weston Fuller was born on February 11, 1833, inAugusta, Maine, the second son of Frederick Augustus Fuller and his wife, Catherine Martin (née Weston).[1]: 903 His maternal grandfather,Nathan Weston, served on theSupreme Court of Maine, and his paternal grandfather was aprobate judge.[2]: 4 His father practiced law in Augusta.[3]: 1471–1472 Three months after Fuller was born, his mother sued successfully for divorce on grounds of adultery; she and her children moved into Judge Weston's home.[3]: 1472 In 1849, the sixteen-year-old Fuller enrolled atBowdoin College, from which he graduatedPhi Beta Kappa in 1853.[4]: 120 He studied law in an uncle's office before spending six months atHarvard Law School.[5]: 339 While he did not receive a degree from Harvard, his attendance made him the first chief justice to have received formal academic legal training.[5]: 339 Fuller was admitted to the Maine bar in 1855 and clerked for another uncle inBangor.[6]: 199 Later that year, he moved back to Augusta to become the editor ofThe Age, Maine's primary Democratic newspaper, in partnership with another uncle.[7]: 30 Fuller was elected to Augusta's common council in March 1856, serving as the council's president and as thecity solicitor.[3]: 1472
In 1856, Fuller left Maine forChicago, Illinois.[7]: 35 The city presented Fuller, a steadfastDemocrat, with greater opportunities and a more favorable political climate.[2]: 5 In addition, a broken engagement likely encouraged him to leave his hometown.[7]: 32 Fuller accepted a position with a local law firm, and he also became involved in politics.[2]: 6 Although Fuller opposed slavery, he considered it an issue for the states rather than the federal government.[7]: 41 He supported theKansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed theMissouri Compromise and allowed Kansas and Nebraska to determine the slavery issue themselves.[7]: 42 Fuller opposed bothabolitionists andsecessionists, arguing instead for compromise.[2]: 6 He campaigned forStephen A. Douglas both in his successful 1858 Senate campaign againstAbraham Lincoln and in his unsuccessful bid against Lincoln in the1860 presidential election.[6]: 199
When theAmerican Civil War broke out in 1861, Fuller supported military action against theConfederacy.[2]: 6 However, he opposed theLincoln Administration's handling of the war, and he decried many of Lincoln's actions as unconstitutional.[6]: 199 Fuller was elected as a Democraticdelegate to the failed 1862 Illinois stateconstitutional convention.[2]: 7 He helped develop agerrymandered system for congressional apportionment, and he joined his fellow Democrats in supporting provisions that prohibited African-Americans from voting or settling in the state.[2]: 7 He also advocated for court reform and for banning banks from printing of paper money.[2]: 7 Although the convention adopted many of his proposals, voters rejected the proposed constitution in June 1862.[2]: 7
In November 1862, Fuller was narrowly elected to a seat in theIllinois House of Representatives as a Democrat.[2]: 8 He held his seat from 1863 until 1865.[8] During this time, the majority-Democrat legislature clashed with Republican governorRichard Yates and opposed the wartime policies of President Lincoln.[2]: 8 Fuller spoke in opposition to theEmancipation Proclamation, arguing that it violated state sovereignty.[7]: 55–56 He supported theCorwin Amendment, which would have prevented the federal government from outlawing slavery.[2]: 8 Fuller opposed Lincoln's decision to suspend the writ ofhabeas corpus, believing it violated civil liberties.[2]: 8 Yates ultimately adjourned the legislature over the vehement objections of Fuller and the Democrats.[7]: 56 The frustrated Fuller never sought legislative office again, although he continued taking part in Democratic party politics.[2]: 9
.jpg)
Fuller maintained a successful legal practice, arguing on behalf of many corporations and businessmen.[2]: 11 He represented the city of Chicago in a land dispute with theIllinois Central Railroad.[2]: 11 In 1869, he took on what became his most significant case: defending Chicago clergymanCharles E. Cheney, whom theEpiscopal Church was attempting to remove because he disagreed with church teaching onbaptismal regeneration.[7]: 69–70 Believing theecclesiastical court to be biased against Cheney, Fuller filed suit in theCook County Superior Court, arguing that Cheney possessed a property right in his position.[2]: 12 The Superior Court agreed and entered an injunction against the ecclesiastical court's proceedings.[2]: 12 On appeal, theSupreme Court of Illinois reversed the injunction, holding that the civil courts could not review church disciplinary proceedings.[7]: 70 The ecclesiastical court found Cheney guilty, but he refused to leave his pulpit.[2]: 12 The matter returned to the courts, where Fuller argued that only the local congregation had the right to remove Cheney.[2]: 12 The Supreme Court of Illinois ultimately agreed, holding that the congregation's property was not under the purview of Episcopal Church leadership.[3]: 1476 Fuller's defense of Cheney garnered him national prominence.[2]: 13
Beginning in 1871, Fuller also litigated before theSupreme Court of the United States, arguing numerous cases.[2]: 13 His legal practice involved many areas of law, and he became one of Chicago's most highly paid lawyers.[2]: 13–14 He remained involved in the politics of the Democratic Party, serving as a delegate tothe party's national conventions in1872,1876, and1880.[2]: 9 Fuller supported astrict construction of theU.S. Constitution.[2]: 14–15 He firmly opposed the printing of paper money,[7]: 77 and he spoke out against the Supreme Court's 1884 decision inJuilliard v. Greenman upholding Congress's power to issue it.[2]: 15 He was a supporter ofstates' rights and generally advocated forlimited government.[2]: 16 Fuller strongly supported PresidentGrover Cleveland, a fellow Democrat, who agreed with many of his views.[2]: 18 Cleveland successively attempted to appoint Fuller to chair theUnited States Civil Service Commission, to serve asSolicitor General, and to be a United States Pacific Railway Commissioner, but Fuller declined each nomination.[4]: 122
On March 23, 1888, Chief JusticeMorrison Waite died, creating a Supreme Court vacancy for President Cleveland to fill.[2]: 16 TheSenate was narrowly under Republican control, so it was necessary for Cleveland to nominate someone who could obtain bipartisan support.[2]: 16 Cleveland also sought to appoint a candidate who was sixty years of age or younger, since an older nominee would likely be unable to serve for very long.[7]: 104–105 He considered Vermont nativeEdward J. Phelps, the ambassador to the United Kingdom, but the politically influential Irish-American community, which viewed him as anAnglophile, opposed him.[9]: 885–886 Furthermore, the sixty-six-year-old Phelps was thought to be too old for the job, and the Supreme Court already had one justice from New England.[7]: 106 SenatorGeorge Gray was considered, but appointing him would create a vacancy in the closely divided Senate.[2]: 17 Cleveland eventually decided that he wanted to appoint someone from Illinois, both for political reasons and because the court had no justices from theSeventh Circuit, which included Illinois.[2]: 17 Fuller, who had become a confidant of Cleveland, encouraged the President to appointJohn Scholfield, who served on the Illinois Supreme Court.[7]: 106–107 Cleveland offered the position to Scholfield, but he declined, apparently because his wife was too rustic for urban life in Washington, D.C.[7]: 107 Fuller was considered because of the efforts of his friends, many of whom had written letters to Cleveland in support of him.[7]: 107–110 At fifty-five years old, Fuller was young enough for the position, and Cleveland approved of his reputation and political views.[7]: 108, 111 In addition, Illinois Republican senatorShelby Cullom expressed support, convincing Cleveland that Fuller would likely receive bipartisan support in the Senate.[7]: 112 Cleveland thus offered Fuller the nomination, which he accepted reluctantly.[10]: 113–114 Fuller was formally nominated on April 30.[2]: 18
Public reaction to Fuller's nomination was mixed: Some newspapers lauded his character and professional career, while others criticized his comparative obscurity and his lack of experience in the federal government.[2]: 19–20 The nomination was referred to theSenate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Vermont RepublicanGeorge F. Edmunds.[7]: 115 Edmunds was displeased that his friend Phelps had not been appointed, so he delayed committee action and endeavored to sink Fuller's nomination.[2]: 20 The Republicans seized upon Fuller's time in the Illinois Legislature, when he had opposed many of Lincoln's wartime policies.[7]: 116 They portrayed him as aCopperhead – an anti-war Northern Democrat – and published a tract claiming that "[t]he records of the Illinois legislature of 1863 are black with Mr. Fuller's unworthy and unpatriotic conduct".[2]: 20 Some Illinois Republicans, including Lincoln's sonRobert, came to Fuller's defense, arguing that his actions were imprudent but not an indicator of disloyalty.[2]: 20 [7]: 116–117 Fuller's detractors claimed he would reverse the Supreme Court's ruling in the recent legal-tender case ofJuilliard; his defenders replied he would be faithful to precedent.[2]: 20–21 Vague allegations of professional improprieties were levied, but an investigation failed to substantiate them.[2]: 21–22 The Judiciary Committee took no action on the nomination, and many believed that Edmunds was attempting to hold it off until after the1888 presidential election.[2]: 22 Cullom demanded an immediate vote, fearing that delay on Fuller's nomination could harm Republicans' prospects ofwinning Illinois.[2]: 22 The committee reported the nomination without recommendation on July 2, 1888.[11]: 33
The full Senate took up Fuller's nomination on July 20.[2]: 22 Several prominent Republican senators, includingWilliam M. Evarts of New York,William Morris Stewart of Nevada, and Edmunds, spoke against the nomination, arguing that Fuller was a disloyal Copperhead who would misinterpret theReconstruction Amendments and roll back the progress made by the Civil War.[2]: 22 Illinois's two Republican senators, Cullom andCharles B. Farwell defended Fuller's actions and character.[2]: 22 Cullom read an anti-Lincoln speech that Phelps, Edmunds's choice for the position, had given.[7]: 120 He accused Edmunds of hypocrisy and insincerity, saying he was simply resentful that Phelps had not been chosen.[7]: 120 The Democratic senators did not participate in the debate, aiming to let the Republicans squabble among themselves.[7]: 120–121 When the matter came to a vote, Fuller was confirmed 41 to 20, with 15 absences.[12] Ten Republicans, includingRepublican National Committee chairMatthew Quay and two senators from Fuller's home state of Maine, joined the Democrats in supporting Fuller's nomination.[2]: 23 Fuller took the judicial oath on October 8, 1888, formally becoming Chief Justice of the United States.[2]: 24 [13]
Fuller served twenty-two years as chief justice, remaining in the center chair until his death in 1910.[14] Although he lacked legal genius, his potent administrative skills made him a capable manager of the court's business.[4]: 123 [15]: 372 Hoping to increase the Court's collegiality, Fuller introduced the practice of the justices' shaking hands before their private conferences.[16]: 223 He successfully maintained more-or-less cordial relationships among the justices, many of whom had large egos and difficult tempers.[17]: 61–63 His collegiality notwithstanding, Fuller presided over a divided court: the justices split 5–4 sixty-four times during his tenure, more often than in subsequent years.[18]: 43 Fuller himself, however, wrote few dissents, disagreeing with the majority in only 2.3 percent of cases.[17]: 63 Fuller was the first chief justice to lobby Congress directly in support of legislation, successfully urging the adoption of theCircuit Courts of Appeals Act of 1891.[4]: 134 The act established intermediateappellate courts, which reduced the Supreme Court's substantial backlog and allowed it to decide cases in a timely manner.[4]: 134–135 As chief justice, Fuller was generally responsible for assigning the authorship of the court's majority opinions.[19]: 1499–1500 He tended to use this power modestly,[18]: 43 often assigning major cases to other justices while retaining duller ones for himself.[3]: 1480 According to legal historianWalter F. Pratt, Fuller's writing style was "nondescript";[20]: 219 his opinions were lengthy and contained numerous quotations.[17]: 61 JusticeFelix Frankfurter opined that Fuller was "not an opinion writer whom you read for literary enjoyment",[9]: 889 while the scholarG. Edward White characterized his style as "diffident and not altogether successful".[19]: 1497–1498
In 1893, Cleveland offered to appoint Fuller to besecretary of state.[16]: 224 He declined, saying he enjoyed his work as chief justice and contending that accepting a political appointment would harm the Supreme Court's reputation for impartiality.[18]: 45 Remaining on the Court, he accepted a seat on an 1897 commission to arbitrate theVenezuelan boundary dispute, and he served ten years on thePermanent Court of Arbitration.[16]: 224 Fuller's health declined after 1900,[6]: 201 and scholarDavid Garrow suggests that his "growing enfeeblement" inhibited his work.[21]: 1012 In what biographer Willard King calls "[p]erhaps the worst year in the history of the Court" – the term from October 1909 to May 1910 – two justices died and one became fully incapacitated; Fuller's weakened state compounded the problem.[7]: 309 Fuller died that July.[7]: 309 PresidentWilliam Howard Taft nominated Associate JusticeEdward Douglass White to replace him.[17]: 67–68
Fuller's jurisprudence is generally identified as conservative.[2]: 1–2 [18]: 41 He favored states' rights over federal power, attempting to prevent the national government from asserting broad control over economic matters.[22]: 42 Yet he was also skeptical of the states' powers: he agreed with the concept ofsubstantive due process and used it to strike down state laws that, in his view, unduly encroached upon the free market.[3]: 1481–1482 [22]: 42–43 Fuller took no interest in preventing racial inequality, although his views on other civil rights issues were less definitive.[15]: 372 Much of Fuller's jurisprudence has not stood the test of time: many of his decisions have been reversed by Congress or overruled by later Supreme Court majorities.[18]: 41 Summarizing Fuller's views of the law, scholar Irving Schiffman wrote in 1969 that "he was a conservative,laissez-faire Justice, less reactionary than some of his brethren, more compassionate than others, but a spokesman for what now seems a far-off and bygone judicial age".[3]: 1481
According to legal scholar Bernard Schwartz, Fuller's most noteworthy decision was his 1895 opinion inPollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.[23]: 184 In 1894, Congress passed theWilson–Gorman Tariff Act, which contained arider that levied a two-percent tax on incomes exceeding $4,000 a year.[24] Since it imposed the nation's first peacetime income tax, this provision was deeply controversial, provoking acrimonious debate along geographic, societal, and political lines.[2]: 117–118 Its challengers took the tax to court, where they argued that it was adirect tax that had not been apportioned evenly among the states, in violation ofa provision of the Constitution.[3]: 1487 (In practice, apportioning income tax by state would be impossible, so a ruling on this basis would doom federal income taxes.[2]: 118 ) When the matter reached the Supreme Court, it unexpectedly agreed with the challengers and, by a 5–4 vote, struck down the income tax.[25]: 805 The majority opinion, written by Fuller, held that theFramers intended the term "direct tax" to include property and that income was itself a form of property.[26] Fuller thus ruled the entire act to be unconstitutional.[27]: 68 The decision provoked withering criticism from each of the four dissenters, including a paroxysm of ire by JusticeJohn Marshall Harlan that one scholar characterized as "one of the most spectacular displays ever staged by a member of the Court".[3]: 1487 [27]: 68–69 Harlan wrote that the decision "strikes at the very foundation of national authority", while JusticeHenry Billings Brown opined it "approaches the proportion of a national calamity".[27]: 68–69 Each dissenter decried the majority's perceived infidelity toprecedent.[28]
ThePollock decision was distinctly unpopular.[29] Much of the public questioned whether Fuller's constitutional analysis was truly in good faith: many felt that the Court was more committed to protecting the wealthy than to following any particular legal philosophy.[5]: 346 Former Oregon governorSylvester Pennoyer even called for theimpeachment of the justices in the majority.[25]: 806 While the public outcry soon waned, support for a federal income tax grew substantially in subsequent years.[30]: 64 TheSixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1913, abrogatedPollock by allowing Congress to levy income taxes without apportionment;[31]: 1723 it marked only the third time in American history that aSupreme Court decision was reversed via constitutional amendment.[30]: 59 However, the Supreme Court has never formally overruledPollock's reasoning; to the contrary, Chief JusticeJohn Roberts cited it in the 2012Affordable Care Act caseNational Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.[25]: 813 Law professor Erik M. Jensen noted in 2014 that most legal academics agree thatPollock was "obviously dead wrong";[25]: 807 scholarCalvin H. Johnson called the decision "a terrible example of judicial bad behavior" that should be "reverse[d] in full".[31]: 1734 Jensen takes a minority position, agreeing withPollock[25]: 807 and extending it to argue for the unconstitutionality offlat taxes[32]: 2334, 2407–2414 andwealth taxes.[33] In any event, Fuller'sPollock opinion remains relevant in contemporary public policy.[34]
Fuller was suspicious of attempts to assert broad federal power over interstate commerce.[35]: 186 Questions about the scope of Congress'sCommerce Clause authority commonly arose in the context of theSherman Act, a major 1890 federalantitrust law.[2]: 128–129 In the first such case,United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895), Fuller led the Court in limiting the federal government's powers.[36] TheDepartment of Justice had filed suit under the Sherman Act against theAmerican Sugar Refining Company, arguing that it was a monopoly because it controlled over ninety percent of the American sugar refining market.[37]: 111 Writing for an eight-justice majority, Fuller concluded Congress could not proscribe such monopolies because they only implicated manufacturing and thus did not fall under the Commerce Clause.[2]: 129 Stating that "[c]ommerce succeeds to manufacture and is not a part of it," he maintained that the sugar-refining trust had no direct impact on interstate commerce.[38]: 373 Fuller feared that a broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause would impinge upon states' rights, and he thus held the Sugar Trust could only be broken up by the states in which it operated.[2]: 130 The case displays Fuller's tendency to support a limited federal government.[2]: 130 The legal academy generally viewsKnight as an unduly restrictive interpretation of the Commerce Clause,[38]: 366–367 although legal scholarRichard Epstein has argued that it aligns with founding-era precedents.[39] The Court's expansive Commerce Clause decisions during theNew Deal period essentially abrogatedKnight.[2]: 134
Fuller participated in several other major antitrust cases.[2]: 129 In the 1904 case ofNorthern Securities Co. v. United States, a majority broke up theNorthern Securities Company, a railroadholding company, believing it to be a monopoly.[2]: 132 Fuller dissented, joining opinions written by Justices Edward Douglass White andOliver Wendell Holmes Jr.[40] The dissenters argued that simply holding stock in a company did not count as interstate commerce, and so they would have held that the Sherman Act did not apply to holding companies.[2]: 132–133 The justices were unanimous inSwift & Co. v. United States (1905), which gave the Court's blessing to antitrust enforcement against meat-packing companies.[2]: 133–134 Although meat-packing did not directly involve interstate commerce, the Court held that the Commerce Clause still applied because the meat products would eventually be sold across state lines.[2]: 133–134 CitingSwift and other cases, legal historianJames W. Ely has argued that Fuller was not opposed to federal antitrust laws per se, but only to expansive readings of the Commerce Clause.[2]: 134 In another antitrust case,Loewe v. Lawlor (1908), Fuller wrote for a unanimous Court that labor unions were subject to the Sherman Act.[35]: 187 The ruling was commonly thought to evince antipathy toward organized labor.[27]: 218–219 Its broad interpretation of the antitrust laws appeared difficult to reconcile withKnight,[41] and law professorDavid P. Currie wrote that the apparent contradiction "suggests that [Fuller] may not have been guided exclusively by neutral legal principles".[42]
Fuller's attempts to limit the national government's power did not always meet with the support of his fellow justices.[35]: 186 He dissented from the Court's 1903 decision inChampion v. Ames, in which five justices upheld a federal ban on transporting lottery tickets across state lines.[43]: 75–76 In his opinion, Fuller demurred that the majority's reasoning gave Congress "the absolute and exclusive power to prohibit the transportation of anything or anybody from one state to another.[27]: 158 He feared that the law violated the principles of federalism and states' rights protected by theTenth Amendment.[44]: 47 The ruling inAmes was among the first to grant the federal government a de factopolice power to protect the welfare of the public.[44]: 45 It proved a historically significant step toward expanding congressional authority, and legal scholar John Semonche wrote that by resisting it, Fuller "sought to put his finger in the dike".[27]: 158 The chief justice also dissented inMcCray v. United States, a 1904 case that approved the use of the federaltaxing power for regulatory purposes.[43]: 73 McCray effectively allowed Congress to regulate intrastate commercial activity by simply levying taxes on it; the decision curtailed Fuller's opinion inKnight and showed his support forfederalism could not always garner the support of a majority of the Court.[2]: 140–141
Fuller's tenure on the Supreme Court, in the words of Schiffman, "witnessed the final passing of judicial tolerance of legislative experimentation and the final acceptance of the doctrine of substantive due process".[3]: 1481 Soon after his arrival on the Court, the chief justice began joining with his colleagues to gradually erode the states' powers to regulate economic activity.[3]: 1481 InChicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota (1890), for instance, Fuller and five other justices voted to strike down the railroad rates set by a Minnesota commission.[37]: 108 The ruling held that theDue Process Clause contained a substantive component that subjected the states' regulatory decisions to judicial review.[2]: 85 With Fuller's support, the Court inAllgeyer v. Louisiana (1897) unanimously expanded that component, concluding the Due Process Clause protected aright to enter into contracts.[3]: 1482 [37]: 115 Allgeyer was the first case in the Court's history in which a state law was struck down on freedom-of-contract grounds,[3]: 1482 and its implications stretched well beyond the insurance context in which it arose.[2]: 96 According to Semonche, the decision heralded a "new and sweeping" interpretation of the Due Process Clause "that would haunt the Justices and American society for the next four decades".[27]: 91
The era of substantive due process reached its zenith in the 1905 case ofLochner v. New York.[45]: 181 Lochner involved aNew York law that capped hours for bakery workers at sixty hours a week.[46]: 520 In a decision widely viewed to be among the Supreme Court's worst,[46]: 516 a five-justice majority held the law to be unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause.[15]: 588–589 The opinion, written by JusticeRufus W. Peckham and joined by Fuller, maintained that the liberty protected by that clause included a right to enter labor contracts without being subject to unreasonable governmental regulation.[47]: 1496–1497 Peckham rejected the state's argument that the law was intended to protect workers' health, citing the "common understanding" that baking was not unhealthy.[15]: 590 He maintained that bakers could protect their own health, arguing that the law was in fact a labor regulation in disguise.[2]: 98 In a now-famous dissent, Justice Holmes accused the majority of substituting its own economic opinions for the requirements of the Constitution.[47]: 1500 Most scholars agree that the majority inLochner engaged injudicial activism, substituting its own views for those of the democratically elected branches of government.[48] The Fuller Court was not exclusively hostile to labor regulation: inMuller v. Oregon (1908), for example, it unanimously upheld anOregon law capping women's working hours at ten hours a day.[2]: 100–101 Nonetheless, Fuller's decision to join the majority in theLochner case, which the Court ultimately abandoned inWest Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937),[46]: 541 is a major reason for the low estimation in which history has held him.[49]: 109
Because of his support for property rights, Fuller favored a broad conception of the judicial role, endorsing doctrinal developments that expanded the federal courts' power to issueinjunctions.[35]: 185 In the case ofIn re Debs (1895), for instance, Fuller and his fellow justices bolstered the judiciary's authority to enjoin deprivations ofpublic rights.[37]: 112 The case stemmed from an 1894strike by theAmerican Railway Union against thePullman Company.[50]: 260 A Chicago federal court issued an injunction against the union's leaders, ordering them to stop facilitating the strike.[2]: 135 [50]: 260–261 Union presidentEugene V. Debs and other union officials defied the order, and the court sentenced them to prison forcontempt.[50]: 261 Debs challenged the conviction before the Supreme Court, but it unanimously denied him relief.[51]: 102 Broadly construing the federal government's powers, the Court held the judicial branch had the power to enjoin anything that obstructed interstate commerce.[50]: 261 TheDebs case opened the door to injunctions in labor cases,[52] and it substantially expanded the courts'equitable authority.[37]: 112 The case ofEx parte Young (1908) similarly demonstrated Fuller's support for extending the courts' ability to issue injunctions.[35]: 185 The case involved theEleventh Amendment, which proscribes the federal courts from hearing lawsuits brought against states.[15]: 1110 InYoung, Fuller and seven other justices endorsed a way to sidestep that prohibition: suing anofficial of the state instead of the state itself.[37]: 128 The landmark[53]: 412 decision aided the Fuller Court in its quest to strike down state economic regulations, but its reasoning has permitted the federal judiciary to hear challenges to state laws in a wide variety of other contexts.[54] Although some modern scholars have criticized the ruling inYoung, attorney Rochelle Bobroff noted in 2009 that it "remains one of the most powerful tools to compel states to comply with federal law".[55] Ely characterized the decision as "a milestone in the Fuller Court's transformation of federal judicial power",[2]: 184 and legal historianEdward A. Purcell Jr. said that it "helped create a newly powerful and activist federal judiciary that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and continued to operate into the twenty-first".[56]
Fuller wrote the majority opinion inUnited States v. Shipp (1909),[27]: 232 a singular decision in which the justices insisted that the authority of the Court be heeded.[57]: 348 A Tennessee court sentencedEd Johnson, an African-American man, to death for rape.[27]: 231 His attorneys petitioned the Supreme Court for relief, arguing that racial bias had tainted the jury pool and that the threat of mob violence made thevenue unfair.[27]: 231 The Court agreed to issue astay of execution, which prevented the death sentence from being carried out pending a ruling on Johnson's appeal.[57]: 193–196 But John Shipp, the sheriff, removed almost all the guards from Johnson's prison, allowing alynch mob to enter the jail and kill Johnson.[27]: 231 Shipp, his deputies, and members of the mob were charged with contempt of court on the basis that they had spurned the Court's stay order.[2]: 185 In the only criminal trial conducted in the Supreme Court's history,[58]: 128 the justices sat as a jury to determine the defendants' guilt.[59] Fuller, writing for a five-justice majority, found Shipp and several other defendants guilty of contempt.[57]: 333–334 In his opinion, the chief justice wrote Shipp had "not only made the work of the mob easy, but in effect aided and abetted it", acting "in utter disregard of this court's mandate and in defiance of this court's orders".[57]: 332–334 While the decision did not signal a sudden benevolence toward civil rights claims,[58]: 128 Mark Curriden and Leroy Phillips write it constituted "the only proactive step the U.S. Supreme Court has ever taken to combat mob rule directly and demand that the public respect its authority and the authority of the rule of law".[57]: 348
In the words of legal scholarJohn V. Orth, Fuller "preside[d] comfortably over a Court that turned a blind eye to racial injustice".[15]: 372 In the infamous[60]: 15 case ofPlessy v. Ferguson (1896), he joined six of his colleagues in upholding aLouisiana law that required theracial segregation of railroad passengers.[61]: 321, 333 [62]: 35 The majority opinion, penned by Justice Brown, rejected the claim that the law violated theEqual Protection Clause, maintaining instead that "separate but equal" distinctions were constitutional.[61]: 321 [63]: 397 Citing "the nature of things", the majority asserted that equal protection did not require the "commingling" of blacks and whites.[63]: 398 Brown also argued that the Louisiana law did not suggest that blacks were inferior,[61]: 321 stating that it was based on "the established usages, customs and traditions of the people".[64] Justice Harlan dissented, using in the process the now-famous phrase "Our Constitution is color-blind."[65]: 10 ThePlessy decision placed the Court's imprimatur onJim Crow laws.[66]: 24 It instituted a half-century of whatLouis H. Pollak called "humiliation-by-law",[62]: 35 which continued until the Court reversed course inBrown v. Board of Education (1954).[65]: 9–10 Fuller's decision to join the majority inPlessy has contributed significantly to his poor historical reputation.[49]: 109
The Fuller Court was no more liberal in other cases involving race: to the contrary, it curtailed even the limited progress toward equality made under Fuller's predecessors.[67]: 198–200 For instance, Fuller joined the unanimous majority inWilliams v. Mississippi (1898), which rejected a challenge topoll taxes andliteracy tests that in effect disenfranchised Mississippi's African-American population.[37]: 117 Even though a lower court had admitted the arrangement was intended "to obstruct the exercise of suffrage by the negro race", the Supreme Court refused to strike it down, reasoning that the provisions passed constitutional muster because they did not explicitly single out African-Americans.[68]: 96 TheWilliams majority distanced itself from the Court's previous ruling inYick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), in which theWaite Court had struck down a law that, while neutral on its face, discriminated against a racial minority.[67]: 199 [68]: 96–97 In a 2021 book,Vernon Burton and Armand Derfner characterizedWilliams as one "of the most disgraceful decisions in Supreme Court history", writing it "abandonedYick Wo" and "erased theFifteenth Amendment".[68]: 96–97
Fuller was among the seven justices who joined the majority opinion inBerea College v. Kentucky (1908),[37]: 129 a segregation case in which the Court refused to apply its freedom-of-contract principles in defense of racial equality.[68]: 104–106 The decision involved the Commonwealth of Kentucky'sDay Law, which required private colleges to segregate their students.[61]: 335, 337 In its challenge to the statute,Berea College citedLochner and other similar cases to argue the law was "an arbitrary interference with the rights of the people in the conduct of their private business and in the pursuit of their ordinary occupations".[69]: 731 [70] Such reasoning seemed likely to persuade the Court, given its history of striking down laws that interfered with the business decisions of private entities.[71] But the justices were not convinced, upholding the law on the basis that, because corporations had no right to be granted acharter, states could impose otherwise unconstitutional restrictions on them.[61]: 337 Again dissenting, Justice Harlan criticized the law's infringement on the economic-freedom principles that the Court had articulated in other cases.[69]: 732 The majority's reasoning stood in conspicuous conflict with its support for corporate rights in other contexts[2]: 159 andDonald Lively wrote the ruling "illuminated the evolving duality of Fourteenth Amendment standards".[72]
As a result of theSpanish–American War, the United States took control ofPuerto Rico and thePhilippines, raising knotty legal issues about their status under the Constitution.[73]: 430 The Supreme Court addressed these disputes in a series of rulings in the so-calledInsular Cases.[74]: 489 InDownes v. Bidwell (1901), a fractured Court ruled 5–4 that the people living in the territories were not entitled to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.[75]: 225–229 Fuller, writing for the four dissenters, argued that Congress had no power to hold the territories "like a disembodied shade" free from all constitutional limits.[76]: 792 He contended that the Constitution could not tolerate unrestricted congressional power over the territories, writing that it rejected that proposition in a way "too plain and unambiguous to permit its meaning to be thus influenced".[77]: 72 Fuller's opinion was in line both with his strict-constructionist views and his party's opposition to American imperialism.[2]: 176 While the Court has never adopted Fuller's position,[75]: 182 scholars such asJuan R. Torruella have argued that it correctly interpreted the Constitution.[77]: 73, 94–95
Fuller joined the majority in another of the Insular Cases:DeLima v. Bidwell (1901).[3]: 1490 The Court held – again by a 5–4 vote – that Puerto Rico did not constitute a foreign country for purposes of federal tariff law.[76]: 793–794 Put together,Downes andDeLima meant that the territories were neither domestic nor foreign under American law.[76]: 795 The Court was similarly unclear inGonzales v. Williams (1904).[78]: 7 In a unanimous opinion by Fuller, the Justices ruled that Puerto Ricans were not aliens under federal law, but they refused to decide whether the people of Puerto Rico were American citizens.[78]: 23 InLate Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States (1890), a case involving Congress's power over theUtah Territory, a six-justice majority upheld an anti-polygamy law that dissolved the charter ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and seized its property.[37]: 109 [79]: 31 Fuller penned a dissent, in which he maintained that Congress had no authority to order the confiscation of property.[79]: 34–35 Rejecting the majority's broader interpretation of federal power, Fuller expressed fear that the decision would afford Congress "absolute power" over the denizens of the territories.[2]: 178 [79]: 35 Ultimately, Fuller's position was vindicated: Congress later passed a joint resolution restoring the church's property.[7]: 148
Fuller was rarely amenable to the claims ofChinese immigrants.[80]: 312 In the 1889Chinese Exclusion Case, for instance, he joined JusticeStephen Field's opinion[80]: 312 that unanimously rejected a challenge to theChinese Exclusion Act.[81]: 31 Although treaties with China allowed for immigration, the Court held that Congress was not bound by them, ruling that the Act abrogated all treaty obligations to the contrary.[81]: 31 InFong Yue Ting v. United States (1893), a majority held Congress had total authority over aliens and that they could be expelled on any basis.[74]: 487–488 Three justices, including Fuller, dissented, arguing that aliens were at least entitled to some Constitutional protections.[82]: 14 According to Ely, Fuller's dissent shows that he "occasionally demonstrated concern over civil liberties".[35]: 187 But he also dissented inUnited States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898),[80]: 313 in which the Court ruled that theFourteenth Amendment ensuredbirthright citizenship – automatic citizenship for all children born on American soil.[83]: 1248–1249 Writing for himself and Justice Harlan, Fuller claimed Chinese aliens were not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States because they retained allegiance to the Chinese emperor.[4]: 146 Based on that fact, he concluded their children had no claim to American citizenship.[4]: 146 TheWong Kim Ark decision has taken on additional significance as prominent Republican politicians, includingDonald Trump, have called for the reversal of birthright citizenship.[83]: 1187–1188
_and_Molly_Coolbaugh_Fuller_(1845%25E2%2580%25931904)_at_Graceland_Cemetery%2c_Chicago.jpg)
Fuller was married twice, first to Calista Reynolds, whom he wed in 1858.[2]: 10 They had two children before she died oftuberculosis in 1864.[6]: 199 Fuller remarried in 1866, wedding Mary Ellen Coolbaugh, the daughter ofWilliam F. Coolbaugh.[3]: 1475 The couple had an additional eight children,[1]: 904 and they remained married until her death in 1904.[7]: 299 A member of theChicago Literary Club, Fuller was interested in poetry and other forms of literature; his personal library held over six thousand books.[6]: 199–200
During his confirmation, Fuller'smustache produced what law professor Todd Peppers called "a curious national anxiety".[84]: 147 No Chief Justice had ever before had a mustache, and numerous newspapers debated the propriety of Fuller's facial hair.[84]: 142 TheNew York Sun praised it as "uncommonly luxuriant and beautiful", while theJackson Standard quipped that "Fuller's mustache is a good quality for a Democratic politician—it shuts his mouth."[84]: 141–143 After Fuller's confirmation, theSun switched course: it denounced his "deplorable moustaches", speculating they would distract attorneys and "detract from the dignity" of the Court.[84]: 143–144 The column triggered further debate in the nation's newspapers, with much of the press coming to Fuller's defense.[84]: 144 The commentary notwithstanding, Fuller kept the mustache.[2]: 23–24
While at his summer home inSorrento, Maine, Fuller died on July 4, 1910, of aheart attack.[16]: 224 Upon hearing of his death, President Taft praised Fuller as "a great judge";Theodore Roosevelt said "I admired the Chief Justice as a fearless and upright judge, and I was exceedingly attached to him personally."[14]James E. Freeman, who later served as the EpiscopalBishop of Washington, conducted the funeral service.[7]: 329 Fuller was buried atGraceland Cemetery in Chicago.[15]: 371
Fuller's time on the Supreme Court has often been roundly criticized[49]: 109 or overlooked altogether.[85]: 150 His support of the widely execratedPlessy andLochner decisions has been particularly responsible for his low historical reputation.[49]: 109 Many Fuller Court decisions were later overruled;[86]: 205 its positions on economic regulation and labor fared particularly poorly.[18]: 37 Fuller's rulings were often favorable to corporations, and some scholars have claimed that the Fuller Court was biased towards big business and against the working class.[87]: 148–151 Fuller wrote few consequential majority opinions, leading Yale professorJohn P. Frank to remark that "[i]f the measure of distinction is influence on the life of our own times, Fuller's score is as close to zero as any man's could be who held his high office so long".[86]: 202 In addition, asWilliam Rehnquist – himself a chief justice – noted, Fuller's more assertive colleagues Holmes and Harlan overshadowed him in the eyes of history.[88]: 796 Yet the Fuller Court's jurisprudence was also a key source of the legal academy's criticism.[18]: 37 Asserting that its justices "ignored the Fundamental Law", Princeton professorAlpheus T. Mason argued that "[t]he tribunal Fuller headed was a body dominated by fear—the fear of populists, of socialists, and communists, of numbers, majorities and democracy".[89]: 607
However, the growth of conservative legal thought in the late 20th century has brought Fuller new supporters.[49]: 109 A 1993 survey of judges and legal academics found that Fuller's reputation, while still categorized as "average", had risen from the level recorded in a 1970 assessment.[90]: 402, 428 In a 1995 book,James W. Ely argued that the traditional criticisms of the Fuller Court are flawed, maintaining that its decisions were based on principle instead of partisanship.[91]: 101–02 He noted that Fuller and his fellow justices rendered rulings that generally conformed with contemporaneous public opinion.[2]: 213–14 BothBruce Ackerman andHoward Gillman defended the Fuller Court on similar grounds, arguing that the justices' decisions fit in with the era's zeitgeist.[92]: 47 Lawrence Reed of theMackinac Center for Public Policy wrote in 2006 that Fuller was "a model Chief Justice", favorably citing his economic jurisprudence.[93] While theserevisionist ideas have become influential in the scholarly academy, they have not attained universal support: many academics continue to favor more critical views of the Fuller Court.[94]: 514 Yale professorOwen M. Fiss, himself sympathetic to the revisionists' views,[94]: 513–14 noted in 1993 that "by all accounts", the Fuller Court "ranks among the worst".[80]: 3 In a 1998 review of Ely's book, law professor John Cary Sims argued that Fuller and his fellow justices failed to fulfill their obligation to go "against the prevailing political winds" instead of simply deferring to the majority.[91]: 102–03 George Skouras, writing in 2011, rejected the ideas of Ely, Ackerman, and Gillman, agreeing instead with theProgressive argument that the Fuller Court favored corporations over vulnerable Americans.[92]: 57–58 Fuller's legacy came under substantial scrutiny amidstracial unrest in 2020, with many condemning him for his vote inPlessy.[95]
In 2013, a statue of Fuller, donated by a cousin,[96] was installed on the lawn in front of Augusta'sKennebec County Courthouse.[97] WithBlack Lives Matter protests and other attention in 2020, focus on thePlessy decision led to debate about the appropriateness of the statue's placement.[98] In August 2020, theMaine Supreme Judicial Court requested that the statue be removed, citingPlessy.[97]Kennebec County commissioners held a public hearing in December; a majority of participants favored the statue's removal.[95] In February 2021, the county commissioners voted unanimously to move the statue from county property, citing a desire to dissociate the county from racial segregation.[99] Commissioners appointed a committee to identify a new home for the statue.[100] In April 2021, the original donor offered to take the statue back, agreeing to pay the costs for removing it.[101] County commissioners accepted the offer later that month; they agreed that the statue could remain in front of the courthouse for up to a year while the original donor attempted to find a new location where it can be displayed.[101] In February 2022, the statue was removed and placed in storage.[102]
Media related toMelville W. Fuller at Wikimedia Commons
Works by or aboutMelville Fuller atWikisource| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief Justice of the United States 1888–1910 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
