American jurist, born in Morris County, NJ, on the 11th of March 1785. He worked on a farm until sixteen years of age, then went to Cincinnati, obtained a clerkship in the office of the county clerk, and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1807, and began practice in Lebanon, OH. In 1812 he was elected to Congress and re-elected in 1814; in 1816 was elected judge of the Ohio supreme court; in 1822 was appointed commissioner of the general land-office. In July 1823, President Monroe made him Postmaster-General, and on account of his efficiency he was given the same position in John Quincy Adams’s Cabinet. He refused the same portfolio in Jackson’s administration, and also declined the departments of the War and the Navy, and was appointed by Jackson associate justice of the United States supreme court in 1830. In this position he became noted for his charges to grand juries. In 1838 he delivered the charge in regard to aiding or favoring “unlawful military combinations by our citizens against any foreign government with which we are at peace,” which had reference to the aid given the Canadian rebels by American citizens. In the case of Dred Scott, Justice McLean dissented from the opinion of the court as given by Chief Justice Taney, maintaining that slavery had its origin in force, not right, and was contrary to the principles of general law, and only upheld by local law. In the Free-soil convention in 1848 and in the Republican conventions of 1856 and 1860 he was a candidate for Presidential nomination. He published Reports of the United States Circuit Court (1829–55); and a Eulogy on James Monroe (1831). He died in Cincinnati, OH, on the 1st of April 1861.
