Heating Up a Case Gone Cold: Revisiting the Charges of Bribery and Official Misconduct Made against Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier in 1854–55

Abstract

Heating Up a Case Gone Cold: Revisiting the Charges of Bribery and Official Misconduct Made against Supreme Court Justice Robert Cooper Grier in 1854-55 DANIEL J. WISNIEWSKI Introduction On July 13, 1854 Zedekiah Kidwell, a representative from Virginia, rose from his seat in the House of Representatives and announced: “I hold in my hand a very important memorial [petition] which I ask the unanimous consent of the House to allow me to present, for the purpose ofreference to the Judiciary Committee.... [It is a m]emorial ofthe Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Compa­ ny asking for an investigation of the charges preferred against the Hon. R. C. Grier, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.”1 Representative Thomas M. Howe, from Pittsburgh, quickly responded: “If left to the impulses of my own feelings and judgment, I should certainly object to the reception of the memorial; but so fully satisfied am I that the distinguished jurist to whom it relates would dissuade me from that course, could he be consulted, I shall interpose no objection.”2 A week earlier the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company had delivered a five-page “legislative memorial” to Congress, leveling numerous allegations of serious judicial misconduct against sitting Justice Robert Cooper Grier, who had been serving on the Court since 1846.3 Three allegations stood out as the most egregious. The Bridge Company claimed that Grier 1) solicited a bribe from their agents, 2) leaked the opinion of the Supreme Court early in order to favor the other party, Pennsylvania, Grier’s home state, and 3) willfully disregarded the law in considering an application for injunction.4 They sought impeachment. 2 JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY In 1854 the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Company accused Justice Robert C. Grier of soliciting a bribe from their agents and of leaking the opinion of a case involving their bridge in order to favor the other party, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Grier’s home state. They sought impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee received the Bridge Company’s allegations and as­ signed the task of investigating them to Rep. Hendrick B. Wright, the only Pennsylvanian on the Committee. Ultimately, Wright would produce a five-page report completely exon­ erating Grier. He would introduce the report on the floor ofthe House on the last day ofthe 33rd Congress, March 3, 1855. The report was tabled, time passed, and the allegations faded into history. Up until now, no known scholarly work has examined the contents ofWright’s Report or the circumstances surrounding its creation. The object ofthis article is to revisit the “Case of Hon. R.C. Grier’’ by analyzing Wright’s Report and “testing” it, so to speak, against the contents of two newly discovered letters,5 written from Grier to Wright in July and August 1854.6 In these letters, Grier asks for Wright’s assistance and proposes to meet to discuss the allegations.7 Background The allegations against Grier stemmed from litigation in Pennsylvania v. Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., which the United States Supreme Court reviewed five times between 1850 and 1856.8 The case gained national attention and attracted famed counsel to both sides—Edwin M. Stanton for Pennsylvania and Reverdy Johnson for the Bridge Compa­ ny (a Virginia corporation). The dispute was over the height of the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, which spanned the Ohio River at Wheeling, Virginia. Pennsylvania argued that the bridge was built too low and obstructed the passage of riverboats going to and from Pittsburgh, and that Virginia’s charter autho­ rizing the bridge violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.9 On the other hand, the Bridge Company argued that the bridge blocked only seven steamboats that had excessively high stacks, and that increas­ ing the bridge’s elevation was not economi­ cally feasible.10 The existence of a bridge at Wheeling was very important. By spanning the Ohio River, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge would finally realize the goals ofthe Cumber­ land Road, which was to make it easier for the United States Mail and commerce in general to travel west.11 But for years, even before plans for its design were ever drawn up, interests in Pennsylvania...