Melville W. Fuller

Melville Weston Fuller

Melville Weston Fuller (born February 11, 1833 in Augusta , Maine , †  July 4, 1910 in Sorrento (Maine) ) was an American lawyer and Chief Justice of the United States from 1888 to 1910.

Live and act

Born in Augusta, Maine, Fuller studied at the prestigious Harvard University and Bowdoin College . In 1853 he graduated from there. His two grandfathers (Nathan Weston and Henry Weld Fuller) had been judges. His father was a well-known lawyer. His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and he was raised by his grandfather, Nathan Weston.

After finishing school, he studied law under the care of an uncle. In 1855 he became the partner of another uncle. At the same time he edited the Democratic magazine "The Age" in Maine before he decided to move to Chicago . In 1860 he became the campaign manager of Democratic presidential candidate Stephen A. Douglas .

Fuller founded his own law firm in up-and-coming Chicago, which was soon to become very successful. After just two years, he filed his first lawsuit in the Illinois Supreme Court . More lawsuits followed, which led him to the US Supreme Court. Even the chief judge, Morrison R. Waite , whose office he would later assume, had to deal with his complaints.

In politics, Fuller played only an insignificant role. For one term he was a member of the House of Representatives of Illinois and he was between 1864 and 1880 a delegate at four nomination conventions of the Democratic Party, in which the respective presidential candidate of the party was determined. His party lost all four Republican elections . Several times he was offered an office in the government, which he refused.

After Morrison Waite's death in 1888, Fuller was named his successor. His appointment was not without controversy, but in the end nine Republicans also approved the appointment, which earned him a majority of 40:21 votes.

In his new office he made some remarkable judgments. For example, he declared a new income tax law unconstitutional or prohibited individual states from taxing cross-border telegrams. During his tenure, five US presidents were inaugurated or sworn in : Benjamin Harrison , Grover Cleveland , William McKinley , Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft . In 1900 Fuller was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Fuller was married twice and had six daughters.

Web links

• Supreme Court Historical Society biography
• Melville Fuller in the database of Find a Grave (English)