Today in Supreme Court History: November 23, 1804

11/23/1804: President Franklin Pierce's birthday. He would appoint Justice John Archibald Campbell to the Supreme Court.

President Pierce appointed Justice Campbell to the Supreme Court

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[apedad]

Justice John Archibald Campbell, AKA: TRAITOR.

"He attended West Point Military Academy for three years but withdrew following the death of his father. . . . President Franklin Pierce nominated Campbell to the Supreme Court of the United States on March 21, 1853, and the Senate confirmed the appointment on April 11, 1853. When the South seceded from the Union, Campbell represented the southern states in an unsuccessful effort to mediate the impending conflict with the Lincoln Administration. Campbell resigned from the Court on April 30, 1861. From 1862 to 1865, he served in the Confederacy as Assistant Secretary of War for conscription."

https://supremecourthistory.org/associate-justices/john-a-campbell-1853-1861/

[Bob from Ohio]

"AKA: TRAITOR"

Always funny to see cheap virtue signaling 160 years after the fact.

Dude was a leading Supreme Court litigator post war, lost the Slaughterhouse Cases. People who fought the war got over it, you are just so MAD about TRAITORS!

[David Nieporent]

People who fought the war got over it,

Not the traitors. They're still fighting it now.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Plenty of Confederate flags and monuments are still being waved and defended these days. The Confederates were traitors, bigots, and losers. That explains the political leanings of those who display and defending Confederate mementos in modern America.

Carry on, clingers. Including Bob from Bigotville, Ohio.

[F.D. Wolf]

"Traitor", is, of course, a matter of perspective. In many ways, he was less a "traitor" than George Washington and the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, because he opposed secession and fought tirelessly to prevent the Civil War. Had he really aspired to do damage to the Union, he could have kept his seat on the Supreme Court and used his power there.

When he returned home to Alabama, his calls for peace almost resulted in his lynching, forcing him to flee to Louisiana. As Confederate Assistant Secretary of War, he continued to lobby for peace, even meeting personally with Lincoln (on two occasions, if I recall). After the War's conclusion, he was arrested, but former Supreme Court colleagues Benjamin Curtis and Samuel Nelson personally appeared on his behalf, and he was released.

As an aside, I suspect the Jefferson Davis treason prosecution was dropped for fear that the Supreme Court would hold that secession was not treason, a precedent the government obviously wished to avoid.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Arnold Tours v. Camp, 400 U.S. 45 (decided November 23, 1970): travel agencies had standing to contest Comptroller of Currency's authority to issue rule allowing national banks to get into the travel agency business (they won, 472 F.2d 427)

Bohlen v. Arthurs, 115 U.S. 482 (decided November 23, 1885): tenant could not cut timber and sell it without consent of co-tenant; co-tenant was allowed to seize timber (diversity action)

Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89 (decided November 23, 1964): police could not arrest man with a history of gambling convictions without a more specific showing of probable cause or warrant (upon searching his person they found "clearing house strips" indicating he was running a numbers racket, possession of which was illegal under Ohio statute)

[Estragon]

Hey Josh: any developments in that Supreme Court leak situation you were so excited about earlier this year?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you expect Prof. Volokh to express a current opinion with respect to un-American and hapless insurrectionist John Eastman, too?

[Mr. Bumble]

No need with you on duty.

Carry on ?.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Hey Josh"

You do realize this is an auto post, right? He's not going to see your witty comment.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you recognize the value of pointing toward low-grade partisan hypocrisy regardless of whether Prof. Blackman notices or responds?

[Mr. Bumble]

Simply. NO.

[Estragon]

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Campbell wasn’t a particularly nice guy, but his advocacy in the Slaughterhouse Cases temporarily aligned him with a broad view of the 14th Amendment’s civil-liberties protections. If he’d won, maybe the Supreme Court wouldn’t have had to stuff so many rights into the Due Process clause where they don’t belong. The latter development allowed enemies of the rights themselves to have more anti-freedom talking points.

[F.D. Wolf]

Democratic nominees Franklin Pierce and William King won the 1852 presidential election. King had taken ill with tuberculosis and travelled to Cuba to recover. On March 2, 1853, two days before Pierce and King took office, Congress passed a statute authorizing the American consul in Cuba to administer the oath of office to King there. King remains the only president or vice president to take his oath of office abroad. King returned to the United States on April 16 and died two days later. His 45-day tenure as Vice President is the third shortest after John Tyler's 31 days and Andrew Johnson's 42 days, both of whom ascended to the Presidency upon the death of the President.

The Democrats did not re-nominate Pierce in 1856, to date the only President denied re-nomination by his party. (Lyndon Johnson likely would have joined him in the distinction had he not dropped out of the 1968 nomination contest). After losing the nomination to James Buchanan, Pierce declared, "The only thing left to do is to get drunk." And he did.

[F.D. Wolf]

I should have said that Pierce was the only incumbent President to be denied re-nomination.

After serving two terms, President Ulysses S. Grant did not seek a third term in 1876. He was succeeded by fellow Republican Rutherford B. Hayes who won the highly controversial 1876 election. Hayes kept his pledge not to seek a second term.

Grant then sought the 1880 nomination, though he did not attend the convention, despite the urging of his wife to do so. Grant led the voting on the first 33 ballots, but lacked the necessary majority of 379 votes. On the 33rd ballot, he polled his highest total at 313 votes. Sen. James G. Blaine, who had finished second on every ballot, then threw his support to dark-horse candidate James Garfield. The anti-Grant forces coalesced around Garfield, who captured a majority on the 34th ballot with 399 votes. Grant finished second with 306. Garfield would go on to win the 1880 presidential election.

[Syd Henderson]

It's worth noting that Chester A. Arthur lost the 1884 Republican nomination, Millard Fillmore the 1852 Whig nomination, and Andrew Johnson the 1868 Democratic nomination, but, of course, they had succeeded on the death of a president. Tyler flirted with the idea of a third-party run but dropped out fairly quickly. I never realized Fillmore or Tyler even tried (although Fillmore did run in 1856).