Nathan Clifford
Nathan Clifford (born August 18, 1803 in Rumney , Grafton County , New Hampshire - † July 25, 1881 in Cornish , Maine ) was an American lawyer , diplomat , politician , attorney general and judge at the United States Supreme Court .
Studies and professional career
The son of a farmer first completed a general education course. After working as a teacher for some time, he studied law . After being admitted to the bar, he founded his first law firm in Newfield, Maine in 1827 . In 1848 he established himself as a lawyer in Portland .
Political career
MPs in Maine and Washington
Clifford began his political career in 1830 with the election to the House of Representatives from Maine , to which he belonged until 1834 and whose speaker he was from 1832 to 1834 as successor to Benjamin White . From 1834 to 1838 he was Attorney General of Maine.
On March 4, 1839, he was elected as a Democrat to the US House of Representatives. There he represented the interests of the second and then the third congressional electoral district of Maine until March 3, 1843 . In 1842 he decided not to be re-elected.
Minister of Justice under President Polk and diplomat
On October 17, 1846, President James K. Polk appointed him as Attorney General ( Attorney General ) in his cabinet , after the previous incumbent John Y. Mason had been appointed Secretary of the Navy . He held this office until March 17, 1848.
Immediately thereafter he was from March 18, 1848 to September 6, 1849 as successor to John Slidell envoy extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Mexico . Shortly before he took office, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on February 2, 1848 . This treaty ended the Mexican-American War (1846-48). After the defeats Mexico suffered in the war, the Mexican government had no choice but to sign the treaty that ultimately led to California and the entire area between Texas and California becoming American.
Supreme Court judge
On January 28, 1858, President James Buchanan appointed him to succeed the resigned Benjamin Robbins Curtis to the Supreme Court Justice (United States Supreme Court) , of which he served until his death. The appeal was confirmed by the Senate shortly afterwards with a narrow 26:23 majority , as many Senators were hesitant about his advocacy of slavery .
As a federal judge, Clifford mainly dealt with commercial law , maritime law , real estate regulations in Mexico, and procedural law . Even if he rarely made legal philosophical statements on constitutional law , he was an advocate of the strict separation of federal law and the law of the individual states . His main constitutional declaration is his dissenting opinion on the Loan Association v. Topeka in which he opposed some kind of natural right or any other reason outside the constitution to prevent parliamentary law. In total, he wrote 398 majority decisions of the Supreme Court during his 23 years as a judge.
In 1877 he was President of the Election Commission to decide the presidential election of 1876 . With a majority of just one vote, Rutherford B. Hayes was declared the winner of the election, with Clifford voting for his Democratic party friend Samuel J. Tilden .
Publications
- United States Circuit Court Reports . 2 volumes. Boston 1869
literature
- Philip G. Clifford: Nathan Clifford, Democrat from 1803 to 1881 . GP Putnam's Sons, New York 1922.
- Biography in Appleton 'Cyclopaedia of American Biography (English)
- Clifford, Nathan . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 1 : Aaron - Crandall . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1887, p. 657 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
Web links
- Nathan Clifford in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)
- Biography on the homepage of the Ministry of Justice
- Nathan Clifford in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
- Biography on the homepage of the US Supreme Court
- Biography in the US legal dictionary
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Clifford, Nathan |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American lawyer and politician |
DATE OF BIRTH | August 18, 1803 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Rumney , New Hampshire |
DATE OF DEATH | July 25, 1881 |
Place of death | Cornish , Maine |