Stanley Matthews: A Case Portrait of Gilded Age High Court Jurisprudence

Abstract

Stanley Matthews: A Case Portrait of Gilded Age High Court Jurisprudence JONATHAN LURIE Introduction Why present a paper dealing with Stanley Matthews? Numerous readers, one suspects, will not be familiar with him. Yet his career includes several unusual aspects that warrant some attention, as was also true of the two Justices discussed in my earlier essays: John A. Campbell was the only member of the Supreme Court to resign from the Court when his state seceded and to be confined in a federal prison at the conclusion ofthe Civil War in 18651 ; and William Howard Taft was the only member of the Supreme Court who served as President, Solicitor General, and circuit judge as well as Chief Justice.2 What is unusual about Justice Stanley Matthews? Three points may be noted: (a) He was the only Justice to be appointed by, not one, but two Presidents; (b) he appears to have been the only Justice to be confirmed by the narrowest possible margin, a single vote;3 and (c) I believe he is the only Justice whose daughter married one ofher father’sjudicial colleagues, in this case Justice Horace Gray. Matthews was a devoted Republican, nominated by two Republican Presidents, yet his selection by Rutherford Hayes in 1880 stirred unusual opposition—and this in an era when it was routine for politics to reflect rancor, enmity, and personal recrimination. While such opposition was not to be unexpected, in Matthews’ case it came from his own party. Indeed, it was not Republican votes but more than a dozen from the Democrats that secured his ultimate confirmation. STANLEY MATTHEWS 161 I Stanley Matthews was born in 1824 in Lex­ ington, Kentucky, where his father held a professorship at Transylvania University, at which another future Supreme Court Justice— Samuel Miller—later studied, not law, but medicine. In 1832, Thomas Matthews moved his family to Cincinnati and became the first headmaster of Woodward High School, from which William Howard Taftwould later gradu­ ate in 1870. The oldest ofeleven children from his father’s second marriage (there were also five from his first), Stanley Matthews must have possessed considerable intellect, as he en­ tered Kenyon College as a junior at the age of fifteen. At Kenyon, he became close friends with another student from Ohio, Rutherford Hayes. This friendship had lasting political repercussions for both young men. Indeed, Hayes appears to have calmed some impetuos­ ity on Matthews’ part concerning a disagree­ ment between several students and the college administrators. Apparently, the altercation al­ most costMatthews his degree, buthe was able to graduate in 1840.4 He was not yet eighteen. Too young to gain admission to the Ohio Bar, Matthews studied law on his own in Cincinnati and relocated for a briefperiod to Tennessee, where he taught school, married, and practiced law. He returned to Cincinnati in 1844 and the nextyear, whenhe turnedtwentyone , was admitted to the Ohio bar. Here again Hayes encountered Matthews, as he served on the committee to examine the young appli­ cant. Hayes recalled that Matthews was “be­ yond dispute a better lawyer than any of the examining committee.”5 Mixing legal prac­ tice with local politics, Matthews became in­ volved with the Free Soil Democrats, served a term in the Ohio Senate, and was mentored by Salmon P. Chase, future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Still an anti-slavery Demo­ crat, he accepted an appointment from Pres­ ident James Buchanan as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. In this capacity, he had to prosecute individuals accused ofviolat­ ing the Fugitive Slave Act, actions thatbrought him substantial abuse from the abolitionist press. Unfortunately, additional, personal, and much more severe tribulation came upon Matthews. Happily married and with a grow­ ing family, husband and wife suffered a terri­ ble loss in 1859 when a scarlet fever epidemic killed four oftheir six children. He andhis wife found solace in their Presbyterian faith, and, ironically, the strength ofhis religious beliefs later contributed to one of the greatest cases of his career as an attorney. In the meantime, Hayes and Matthews wentoffto war. Theyboth survived (otherwise this would be a very short essay) and returned to law and politics in...