Benjamin Robbins Curtis.
Item Information
- Title:
- Benjamin Robbins Curtis.
- Description:
-
Born November 4, 1807. Associate Justice of U.S. Supreme Court, who wrote dissenting opinion in Dred Scott Case, and later defended President Andrew Johnson in his impeachment trial. Benjamin Robbins Curtis was an American attorney and United States Supreme Court Justice. Curtis was the first and only Whig justice of the Supreme Court. He was also the first Supreme Court justice to have a formal legal degree and is the only justice to have resigned from the court over a matter of principle. He successfully acted as chief counsel for President Andrew Johnson during the first presidential impeachment trial and is notable as one of the two dissents in the Dred Scott decision. In 1849, he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Appointed chairman of a committee to reform state judicial procedures, they presented the Massachusetts Practice Act of 1851. "It was considered a model of judicial reform and was approved by the legislature without amendment." Curtis received a recess appointment to the Supreme Court on September 22, 1851 by President Millard Fillmore. The acrimony over the Dred Scott decision had blossomed into mutual distrust. He did not want to live on $6,500 per year, an amount much less than his earnings in private practice. He did not like "riding the circuit" as Supreme Court Justices were then required to do. He was temperamentally estranged from the court, and was not inclined to work with others?he was not a 'team player', at least not on that team. Upon his resignation, Curtis returned to his Boston law practice, becoming a "leading lawyer" in the nation. During the ensuing decade and a half, he argued several cases before the Supreme Court. Curtis had 12 children and was three times married. Curtis died in Newport, Rhode Island on September 15, 1874. He is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Format:
-
Photographs
- Location:
- Watertown Free Public Library
- Collection (local):
-
Watertown People
- Subjects:
-
Portraits
Dred Scott Case--U.S. Supreme Court
Curtis, Benjamin Robbins--1807-1874
- Places:
-
Massachusetts > Middlesex (county) > Watertown
- Permalink:
- https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/rv043131r
- Terms of Use:
-
Management Restrictions apply. See application form at http://watertownlib.org/research/historic-watertown/photographs
Contact host institution for more information.
- Identifier:
-
figure 673
