Justice John Archibald Campbell
Today’s Justice of the Day is: JOHN ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. Justice Campbell was born on this day, June 24, in 1811.
Justice Campbell was born in Washington, Georgia, east-southeast of Athens, Georgia, and was considered a child prodigy. His precociousness led him to enroll at Franklin College (now the University of Georgia) at the age of 11 and graduate from there in 1825, at the age of 14. Justice Campbell later attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point for three years, before the death of his father forced him to drop out in 1828.
Upon returning to his hometown in 1829, Justice Campbell embarked on a career in private practice that would continue up to his appointment to the SCUS. Later that same year, he moved to Montgomery, Alabama, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States, and remained there until he left for Mobile, Alabama in 1837. Justice Campbell’s time in Mobile saw him enjoy year-long stints in the Alabama House of Representatives in 1837 and 1843, in addition to his ongoing legal career; ironically, he also rejected two offers to be appointed to the Alabama Supreme Court around that time.
Justice Campbell was nominated by President Franklin Pierce on March 21, 1853, to a seat vacated by Justice John McKinley. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 22, and received his commission that day. Justice Campbell took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on or around April 11, and served his entire tenure on the Taney Court. His service was terminated on April 30, 1861, when he resigned to join the forces of the Confederate State of America. He became the CSA’s Assistant Secretary of War for the Draft in 1862, serving until the dissolution of that insurgent government, and then returned to private practice, this time primarily in New Orleans, Louisiana (from 1865 to 1884).
Throughout his life, Justice Campbell’s articulated judicial philosophy stayed true to what one would expect from a Southern aristocrat of that era: he vehemently supported states’ rights and joined the odious Opinion of the Court in the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) case. Despite having left the SCUS early, his post-Civil War legal career saw him remain quite active in some of the biggest controversies before the Court, such as when he argued unsuccessfully for interpreting the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments as prohibiting state encroachment on economic liberty in The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873).