Justice Joseph P. Bradley
Today’s Justice of the Day is: JOSEPH P. BRADLEY. Justice Bradley was born on this day, March 14, in 1813.
Justice Bradley was born in Berne, New York. He came from a humble background (the oldest of eleven children raised in a small town), but his aptitude as a student led him to earn a B.A. in 1836 from Rutgers College, a school located in New Jersey, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.
In 1839 Justice Bradley began his career in private practice in Newark, New Jersey, which would last until he was appointed to the SCUS. During his private sector career he was also a legislative correspondent and an Actuary with the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company. Justice Bradley built a tremendous reputation as a lawyer for the railroad industry and Republican activist, the latter of which was likely integral to his being selected to serve on the SCUS.
Justice Bradley was nominated by President Ulysses S. Grant on February 7, 1870, to a seat newly authorized by Congress. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 21, and received his commission the following day. Justice Bradley took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on March 23, and served on the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts. His service was terminated on January 22, 1892, due to his death.
Justice Bradley is not especially well-remembered today, like almost all Justices from the 19th century. His most famous action while at the SCUS was when he authored the odious opinion of the Court in The Civil Rights Cases (1883), wherein the Court held, over the loud objections of the great Justice John Marshall Harlan (I), that acts of discrimination on the basis of race were private wrongs which the Constitution did not empower the Federal government to correct (a ruling that helped preserve institutionalized racism throughout the country for nearly three-quarters of a century).