McLean, John

views updated May 18 2018

MCLEAN, JOHN

John McLean served as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-two years, one of the longest tenures in the history of the Court.

"In the [Dred Scott v. Sandford] argument, it was said that a colored citizen would not be an agreeable member of society. This is more a matter of taste than law … [for] under the late treaty with Mexico we made citizens of all grades, combinations, and colors."
—John McLean

McLean was born on March 11, 1785, in New Jersey but was raised primarily near Lebanon, Ohio, where his father staked out land that later became the family farm. McLean attended a county school and later was tutored by two schoolmasters, Presbyterian ministers,

and paid them with money he earned working as a farm hand. In 1804, at the age of nineteen, he began working as an apprentice to the clerk of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati and also studied law with Arthur St. Clair and John S. Gano, two distinguished Cincinnati lawyers.

In 1807 McLean was admitted to the bar, married, and returned to Lebanon to open a printing office. He began publishing the Lebanon Western Star, a partisan journal supporting the Jeffersonian party. Three years later McLean gave his newspaper and printing business to his brother to concentrate full-time on the practice of law. At the same time, McLean, who had been raised Presbyterian, converted to Methodism, an experience that would have a strong impact throughout his life. He was active in church affairs and wrote articles about the Bible, and in 1849 he was named honorary president of the American Sunday School Union.

In 1812, after a year serving as examiner in the U.S. Land Office in Cincinnati, McLean was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of twenty-seven and was reelected two years later. During his two terms in the House, McLean was a staunch supporter of President james madison and his efforts to wage the war of 1812. McLean, unhappy with the salary paid to members of Congress and wanting to be closer to his wife and children, chose not to run again in 1816 and returned home. Back in Ohio, McLean easily won election to one of four judgeships on the Ohio Supreme Court, a demanding position that required him to "ride the circuit," or hear cases throughout the state.

In 1822 McLean was again drawn to politics and made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate. Shortly after McLean lost the election, President james monroe appointed him commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington, a direct result of McLean's earlier hard work to secure Monroe's nomination for the presidency. The position meant a large increase in salary and led to McLean's appointment the next year to the position of postmaster general. During his six years as postmaster general, McLean expanded the number of routes and deliveries, established thousands of new post offices, and increased the size of the u.s. postal service to almost 27,000 employees.

Though he served as postmaster under john quincy adams, McLean used his considerable political skills to establish ties with andrew jackson, who defeated Adams for the presidency

in 1828. As a result, McLean was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, winning confirmation easily.

McLean remained interested in politics during his tenure on the Supreme Court and was even seriously considered as a nominee for the presidency at several national conventions, though his name was withdrawn from consideration each time. His last bid came in 1860, a year before his death, when he was one of the Republican party's candidates. The nomination instead went to abraham lincoln.

While an associate justice on the High Court, McLean wrote a number of significant opinions, including a strong dissent in the Dred Scott case of 1857 (dred scott v. sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (Mem), 19 How. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691). In Dred Scott, a slave sued his master for freedom after he had been taken to live on free soil for several years. The Supreme Court held that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress could not pass legislation preventing slavery. McLean, however, who had long opposed slavery, argued that Congress could exclude slavery from the territories and could also liberate slaves living in "free" states. McLean's most significant majority opinion came in 1834 in wheaton v. peters, a dispute between two of the Court's reporters of decisions (33 U.S. 591, 8 Pet. 591, 8 L. Ed. 1055 (Mem.) (U.S. Pa., Jan. Term 1834)). Richard Peters sought to republish decisions that had previously been published by henry wheaton, his predecessor. Wheaton, worried that he would sell fewer opinions and thus lose profits, sued Peters, alleging copyright infringement. McLean, writing for the Court, held that the opinions were in the public domain and thus no copyright had been violated.

Though McLean enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a jurist, his personal life was less happy. Three of his four daughters died young, as did a brother, and he also lost his first wife in 1840. He and his second wife had one son who died only a few weeks after birth. Though McLean's own health began to fail as early as 1859, he continued to serve on the Court until his death from pneumonia April 4, 1861.

John McLean

views updated May 29 2018

John McLean

The American politician and judge John McLean (1785-1861) was perhaps the most politically conscious justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

John McLean was born in Morris County, N.J., on March 11, 1785, to Fergus McLean, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian weaver turned farmer, and Sophia Blackford McLean. The family moved several times with stops in western Virginia and Kentucky before settling in Warren County, Ohio, about 40 miles from Cincinnati, in 1797. In this frontier atmosphere McLean managed to get an irregular but sound education. His legal education was gained, starting in 1804, by simultaneously serving as apprentice to the clerk of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas and reading law with Arthur St. Clair, Jr., for a 2-year period. In 1807 he founded a Jeffersonian weekly, Western Star, at Lebanon and married Rebecca Edwards. They had four daughters and three sons.

McLean became an enthusiastic Methodist through conversion by a circuit rider in 1811 and remained active in the faith throughout his life. Republican activities led in 1812 to his nomination and election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he supported the administration in the fight with England. In 1816 the Ohio Legislature elected him to the state supreme court. A preview of his work on the U.S. Supreme Court was his opinion in the case of the slave Thomas Lunsford, in which he engaged in obiter dicta, maintaining that slavery was contrary to natural justice, but that "as judge I am sworn to support the Constitution of the United States." In Congress, McLean had effectively supported James Monroe's nomination.

In 1822 McLean was appointed commissioner of the Public Land Office. The following year he was appointed postmaster general and through energy and ability brought expansion and efficiency to the office, where he remained until 1829. Through his example the postmastership was raised to Cabinet status in 1829. In the bitter Adams-Jackson campaign of 1828 McLean displayed enough political adroitness to be both retained by Adams and ultimately appointed to the Supreme Court by Jackson.

But if McLean's appointment was due to political acumen, he was also considered one of the two best lawyers in the West. There has been no thorough examination of all his opinions delivered in more than 30 years on the Federal bench, and thus his reputation as a judicial craftsman has suffered. With emphasis placed on his opinions in great cases in which his reasoning was based largely on nonlegal factors, McLean emerges as a nationalist who was well aware of the needs of the business community. He was, however, able to adjust his nationalism as circumstances provided. He also usually practiced judicial activism—considering questions that were not essential to the decision at hand, just as he had done on the state bench. The slavery questions illustrate well his values. In Groves v. Slaughter (1841), he upheld the right of Mississippi to restrict the introduction of slaves from other states. But even though it was "not necessary" to the decision, McLean restated his nationalism by holding that the power to regulate commerce rested exclusively with Congress. The following year in Prigg v. Pa., he continued his reasoning that slavery was subject only to state regulations by asserting that in the North "every person is presumed to be free regardless of color." Thus the personal liberty laws of northern states were constitutional. Finally, his insistence on discussing Congress's authority to prohibit slavery in the territories provided five proslavery justices with the excuse to respond and made the Dred Scott case a cause célèbre. In a long dissent he held that Scott should be free. McLean was the most pronounced opponent of slavery to sit in antebellum days.

A large, impressive man in appearance, McLean is known for the presidential aspirations which governed his last 30 years on the bench. Virtually every election saw him as an active contender, and virtually every party at one time or another received his attention; at the age of 75 he sought the Republican nomination. McLean was widowed in 1840 and he married again in 1843, to Sarah Bella Garrard. He died of pneumonia on April 4, 1861.