Morrison Waite | |
|---|---|
 Portrait byMathew Brady,c. 1870—1880 | |
| 7thChief 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 theOhio House of Representatives fromLucas andHenry Counties | |
| In office 1849–1850 | |
| Preceded by | Freeborn Potter |
| Succeeded by | Samuel H. Steedman |
| Mayor ofMaumee, 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 (1816-11-29)November 29, 1816 Lyme, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | March 23, 1888(1888-03-23) (aged 71) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery |
| Party |
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| Spouse | |
| Children | 4 |
| Education | Yale College (BA) |
| Signature |  |
Morrison Remick "Mott"Waite (November 29, 1816 – March 23, 1888) was an American attorney, jurist, and politician fromOhio who served as the seventhchief justice of the United States from 1874 until his death in 1888. During his tenure, theWaite Court took a narrow interpretation of federal authority related to laws and amendments that were enacted during theReconstruction Era to expand the rights offreedmen and protect them from attacks bywhite supremacist groups such as theKu Klux Klan.
Born inLyme, Connecticut, Waite established a legal practice inToledo, Ohio, after graduating fromYale University. As a member of theWhig Party, Waite won election to theOhio House of Representatives. An opponent ofslavery, he helped establish theOhio Republican Party. He served as a counsel in theAlabama Claims and presided over the1873 Ohio constitutional convention.
After the May 1873 death of Chief JusticeSalmon P. Chase, PresidentUlysses S. Grant underwent a prolonged search for Chase's successor. With the backing ofSecretary of the InteriorColumbus Delano, Grant nominated Waite in January 1874. The nomination of the relatively obscure Waite was poorly received by some prominent politicians, but theSenate unanimously confirmed Waite and he took office in March 1874. Despite some support for his nomination, he declined to run for president in the1876 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 ofpneumonia 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 theReconstruction Amendments. His majority opinion inMunn v. Illinois upheld government regulation of grain elevators and railroads and influenced constitutional understandings of government regulation. He also helped establish the legal concept ofcorporate personhood in the United States. However in theCivil Rights Cases[2] he sided with a majority to strike down theCivil Rights Act of 1875, which had prohibited discrimination in access to public services, that was not restored until theCivil Rights Act of 1964.
Morrison Remick Waite was born on November 29, 1816, atLyme, Connecticut, the son ofHenry 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 theSupreme 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 attendedBacon Academy inColchester, Connecticut, where one of his classmates wasLyman Trumbull. He graduated fromYale College in 1837, the same class that includedSamuel J. Tilden, the 1876 Democratic presidential nominee. As a student at Yale, Waite became a member of theSkull and Bones andBrothers in Unity societies,[5] and was elected toPhi Beta Kappa society in 1837.[6] Shortly after graduating, Waite became a law clerk for his father in 1837.[7]
Soon afterward Waite moved toMaumee, Ohio, where heread law in the office of Samuel L. Young. He wasadmitted 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.
He married Amelia Champlin Warner on September 21, 1840 inHartford, Connecticut. They had three sons together: Henry Seldon, Christopher Champlin, and Edward Tinker; and a daughter Mary Frances Waite.
In 1850, Waite and his family moved toToledo, Ohio, 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 wasGeorge P. Estey, a man from New Hampshire who served as aUnion Army general during theAmerican Civil War.
An active member of theWhig Party, Waite was elected to a term in theOhio House of Representatives in 1849–1850. He made two unsuccessful bids for theUnited States Senate, and was offered (but declined) a seat on theOhio Supreme Court. In the mid-1850s, because of his opposition toslavery, Waite joined the fledglingRepublican Party and helped to organize it in his home state. By 1870, he was known as one of the best lawyers in Ohio.[9]
In 1871, Waite received an invitation to represent the United States (along withWilliam M. Evarts andCaleb Cushing) as counsel before theAlabama Tribunal atGeneva. 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 the1873 Ohio constitutional convention.[7]
PresidentUlysses S. Grant nominated Waite as Chief Justice on January 19, 1874, after a political circus related to the appointment. Chief JusticeSalmon P. Chase died in May 1873, and Grant waited six months before first offering the seat in November to the powerfulSenatorRoscoe Conkling ofNew York, who declined.
After ruling out a promotion of a sittingAssociate Justice to Chief (despite much lobbying from the legal community for JusticeSamuel Freeman Miller), Grant was determined to appoint an outsider as Chief Justice and offered the Chief Justiceship to senatorsOliver Morton ofIndiana andTimothy Howe ofWisconsin, then to hisSecretary of State,Hamilton Fish. He finally submitted his nomination ofAttorney GeneralGeorge 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. One day after withdrawing Williams, Grant nominatedDemocrat and former Attorney GeneralCaleb Cushing, but withdrew it after Republican Senators alleged Civil War-era connections between Cushing and theConfederate PresidentJefferson Davis. Finally, after persistent lobbying from Ohioans, includingInterior SecretaryColumbus Delano, on January 19, 1874, Grant nominated the little-known Waite. He was notified of his nomination by a telegram.[10]
The nomination was not well received in political circles. The formerSecretary of the Navy,Gideon Welles, remarked of Waite that, "It is a wonder that Grant did not pick up some old acquaintance, who was astage driver orbartender, for the place," and the political journalThe 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]
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 theAmerican Civil War andReconstruction, and especially in those that involved the interpretation of theReconstruction Amendments, i.e. theThirteenth,Fourteenth andFifteenth amendments, Waite sympathized with the court's general tendency to interpret these amendments narrowly. InUnited States v. Cruikshank, the court struck down theEnforcement Act, ruling that the states had to be relied on to protect citizens from attack by other private citizens.
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 tofalsely 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 theColfax massacre at theGrant Parish, Louisiana, courthouse on Easter 1873. Their convictions under theEnforcement Act were thrown out not because the statutes were unconstitutional, but because the indictments under which the men were charged were infirm because they failed to allege specifically that the murders were committed on account of the victims' race.[14]
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 mostlynchings orparamilitary attacks against blacks. The majority of the Court and the people outside the South were tired of the bitter racial strife related to Reconstruction. In the 1870s, white Democrats regained power in southern legislatures; they passedJim Crow laws suppressing blacks as second-class citizens. After years of elections surrounded by fraud and violence to suppress black voting, from 1890 to 1908 (after Waite's death) all the Democrat-dominated southern state legislatures passed new constitutions or amendments thatdisfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites in the South. Well into the 1960s, these laws excluded those groups from the political system.
Waite's social and political orientation was also apparent in the Court's response to claims by other groups. InMinor v. Happersett (1875), using the restricted definition of national citizenship and the 14th Amendment as set forth in theSlaughterhouse Cases (1873), Waite upheld the states' right to deny women thefranchise. Nonetheless, Waite sympathized with the women's rights movement and supported the admission of women to the Supreme Court bar.[14]
In his opinion inMunn v. Illinois (1877), one of sixGranger 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 toMunn v. Illinois for guidance in interpreting due process, as well as the Commerce and Contract Clauses.[citation needed]
Waite concurred with the majority in theHead Money Cases (1884), the Ku-Klux Case (United States v. Harris, 1883), theCivil Rights Cases (1883),Pace v. Alabama (1883), and theLegal Tender Cases (includingJuilliard v. Greenman) (1883). Among the most important opinions he personally wrote were theEnforcement Act Cases (1875), theSinking Fund Cases (1878), theRailroad Commission Cases (1886) and theTelephone Cases (1887).
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."[citation needed] In the aftermath of thepresidential election of 1876, Waite refused to sit on theElectoral Commission that decided the electoral votes ofFlorida because of his close friendship with GOP presidential nomineeRutherford B. Hayes as well as being a Yale College classmate of Democratic presidential nomineeSamuel J. Tilden.
As Chief Justice, Waite swore in PresidentsRutherford Hayes,James Garfield,Chester A. Arthur andGrover Cleveland. After suffering a breakdown, probably due to overwork, Waite refused to retire. Almost to the moment of his death, he continued to draft opinions and lead the Court.[14]
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.
WhenSanta Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company,118 U.S.394 (1886), came before the Court, Sanderson asserted that 'corporate persons' should be treated the same as 'natural (or human) persons.' and although the Court specifically did not rule on it, the Reporter of Decisions,John Chandler Bancroft Davis, inserted the followingdictum in the headnotes:[16]
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 thisdictum in the headnote and the Waite reply changed the course of history and howcorporations came to have the legal rights of a human person.
Thomas Hartmann, in his bookUnequal 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.
Waite died unexpectedly ofpneumonia on March 23, 1888.[19][20] This created a stir in Washington, as there had been no hint that his illness was serious. His condition had been treated as confidential, in part to avoid alarming his wife who was in California. TheWashington Post devoted its entire front page to his demise. Large crowds joined in the mourning. Except for JusticesBradley andMatthews, all the justices accompanied his body on the special train that went toToledo, Ohio. Mrs. Waite traveled by train from California, arriving just in time for the funeral.
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 inWoodlawn Cemetery, inToledo, 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 LadyFrances Cleveland, the Cabinet, and fellow Supreme Court justices.[24]
Supreme Court JusticeFelix 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 in Toledo, Ohio is named in his honor.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Waite, Morrison Remick".Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
| Legal offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Chief Justice of the United States 1874–1888 | Succeeded by |
