Justice Noah Haynes Swayne
Today’s Justice of the Day is: NOAH HAYNES SWAYNE. Justice Swayne was born on this day, December 7, in 1804.
Justice Swayne was born in Frederick County, Virginia, located in the northern part of the state where he was raised but left at the age of nineteen as a result of his fervent opposition to slavery. He did not receive any formal university education, which was not uncommon for his era.
In 1824, Justice Swayne entered private practice in Coshocton, Ohio, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Concurrent with this phase of his private legal career, he also served as Prosecutor for Coshocton County, Ohio (in 1826) and as a Member of the Ohio House of Representatives (in 1830, and then again in 1836). Justice Swayne temporarily left private practice to become the United States Attorney for the District of Ohio, a position he held from 1830 to 1839. He then returned to work as private attorney, now in Columbus, Ohio, until his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Justice Swayne was nominated by President Abraham Lincoln on January 21, 1862, to a seat vacated by Justice John McLean. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 24, and received his commission that day. Justice Swayne took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on January 27, and served on the Taney, Chase, and Waite Courts. His service was terminated on January 24, 1881, due to his retirement.
Justice Swayne is not especially well remembered today, and he wrote very few major opinions in his time. Perhaps the most high profile controversy he took part in was The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), where he dissented from the opinion of the Court’s interpretation of the Civil War Amendments as not forbidding the creation of monopolies.