Benjamin Robbins Curtis - Supreme Court Service

Supreme Court Service

Curtis received a recess appointment to the Supreme Court on September 22, 1851 by President Millard Fillmore, filling the vacancy caused by the death of Levi Woodbury. Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster persuaded Fillmore to nominate Curtis to the Supreme Court, and was his primary sponsor. Formally nominated on December 11, 1851, Curtis was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 20, 1851, and received his commission the same day. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1854.

He was the first Supreme Court Justice to have earned a law degree from a law school — his predecessors had either "read law" (a form of apprenticeship in a practicing firm) or had attended a law school without receiving a degree.

His opinion in Cooley v. Board of Wardens 53 U.S. 299 (1852) held that the Commerce Power extends to laws related to pilotage. States laws related to commerce powers can be valid so long as Congress is silent on the matter. This resolved a historic controversy over federal interstate commerce powers. To this day, it is an important precedent for resolving disputes. The court interpreted Art. I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution, the Commerce Clause. The issue was whether states could regulate aspects of commerce or whether Congress retained exclusive jurisdiction to regulate commerce. Curtis concluded that the federal government enjoyed exclusive power to regulate commerce only when the thing regulated required national uniformity. Otherwise, states were permitted to regulate commerce.

Curtis was notable as one of the two dissenters in the Dred Scott case, where he disagreed with virtually every holding of the court, and argued against the majority's denial of the slave Scott's bid for emancipation. See, dissenting opinion of Justice Benjamin Curtis, wherein he stated that there were African American citizens in both Southern and Northern states at the time: Therefore, they were among the "people of the United States" whom the Constitution addressed. Curtis also opined that since the majority had found that Scott lacked standing, the Court had no power to rule on the merits of his case.

Curtis resigned from the court on September 30, 1857, because of the bitter feelings engendered by the Scott case. His bitterness over the decision was said to be compounded by displeasure over his salary.

Others view the cause of his resignation as having been temperamental and financial. He did not like "riding the circuit" as Supreme Court Justices were then required to do. He was temperamentally estranged from the court, and was not inclined to work with others—he was not a 'team player', at least not on that team. The acrimony over the Dred Scott decision had blossomed into mutual distrust. He did not want to live on $6,500 per year, an amount much less than his earnings in private practice. Finally, the public outcry over his decision was contrary to his elitist inclinations, as he thought the public was not supposed to talk back.

Another source states, “a bitter disagreement and coercion by Roger Taney prompted Benjamin Curtis's departure from the Court in 1857."

Although he remained on the Court for only six years, Curtis is generally considered to have been the only outstanding justice on the Taney Court in its later years, other than Taney himself. He is the only Justice of the Supreme Court to have resigned on a matter of principle.