American jurist, born in Watertown, MA, on the 4th of November 1809; died in Newport, RI, on the 15th of September 1874. He graduated at Harvard College in 1829, and was admitted to the bar in 1832. In 1851 President Fillmore elevated him to the bench of the United States supreme court. His judicial duties being distasteful to him, he resigned in 1857 and returned to the practice of his profession in Boston, MA. He served two years in the Massachusetts legislature, and was one of the counsel for the defense in the impeachment trial of President Johnson, the answer in that celebrated case being mainly his work. While on the supreme court bench he stoutly maintained the right of Congress to abolish slavery, and dissented from the majority of the court in the Dred Scott case. After retiring from the bench, he edited several series of reports and digests.
