Nathan Clifford - Judicial Service and Later Life

Judicial Service and Later Life

On December 9, 1857, President James Buchanan nominated Clifford to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Benjamin R. Curtis. Clifford was confirmed on January 12, 1858, by a narrow margin of 26 votes to 23 in the United States Senate. Senators were hesitant about placing a pro-slavery Democrat on the Supreme Court. His specialties were commercial and maritime law, Mexican land grants, and procedure and practice. Though he rarely declared any legal philosophy about the Constitution, Justice Clifford believed in a sharp dividing line between federal and state authority. His major constitutional contribution may have been his dissent in Loan Association vs. Topeka (20 Wallace 655) in which he rejected "natural law," or any ground other than clear constitutional provision, as a basis the Court use to strike down legislative acts. Justice Clifford's opinions were comprehensive essays on law, and have sometimes been criticized as overly lengthy and digressive. Justice Clifford wrote the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in 398 cases. He served on the Court for 23 years, beginning on January 28, 1858, and continuing until his death from the complications of a stroke.

Clifford was president of the Electoral Commission convened in 1877 to determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, 1876. Clifford voted for Samuel Tilden (a fellow Democrat), but Rutherford B. Hayes famously won by a single vote in the Compromise of 1877. He believed that the commission acted incorrectly in nullifying Tilden's apparent victory at the polls and never accepted Hayes as the lawful president.

Clifford was one of a handful of persons who have served in all three branches of the United States federal government. He died in Cornish, Maine in 1881; he was interred in Evergreen Cemetery, in Portland, Maine. The Nathan Clifford Elementary School in Portland is named for him.

Clifford's son, William Henry Clifford, was a successful lawyer and an unsuccessful candidate for the Maine State House of Representatives; his grandson, also named Nathan Clifford, was also a lawyer and briefly president of the Maine State Senate.