Strong, William

Strong, William (b. 6 May 1808, Somers, Conn.; d. 19 Aug. 1895, Lake Minnewaska, N.Y.; interred Charles Evans Cemetery, Reading, Pa.), associate justice, 1870–1880. William Strong was the eldest son of Rev. William Lighthouse Strong and Marriet Deming Strong. Rev. Strong was a Somers' Congregational (“Standing Order”) minister. Young Strong attended local schools and graduated from Yale College. He taught briefly but returned to Yale to study law. Although admitted to the Connecticut bar, he eventually moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, where he mastered German and built a successful practice.

In 1846 Strong was elected to the Thirtieth Congress as a “Locofoco” Democrat and served two terms. He remained out of politics until elected to the state supreme court in 1857, serving until 1868. Strong became a Republican during the 1860s and may have been considered by Abraham Lincoln for the chief justiceship in 1864.

In February 1870 even as the Court announced its decision in Hepburn v. Griswold (see Legal Tender Cases), striking down the legal tender law, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Strong and Joseph P. Bradley to fill vacancies. Previously Strong upheld the law in Shollenberger v. Brinton (1866). The “packed” Court reversed Hepburn in 1871 with Strong writing the opinion.

In Reconstruction cases, Justice Strong wrote the opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court emasculating the confiscation laws (Bigelow v. Forrest, 1870) and in Blyew v. United States (1872) stopped the government's prosecution of an alleged murderer because his black victims, being dead, no longer had rights to lose. Strong supported jury rights for blacks in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880) and Ex parte Virginia (1880), but in Virginia v. Rives (1880), he refused to require that blacks be on juries.

Strong's expertise was in patent and business law where he often sided with Justice Stephen J. Field, notably in Munn v. Illinois (1877). He wrote the State Freight Tax Case (1873), prohibiting Pennsylvania from taxing interstate commerce (see Commerce Power).

Strong figured in two other controversies. A reluctant member of the Electoral Commission in 1877, he voted to seat disputed president‐elect Rutherford B. Hayes. (See Extrajudicial Activities.) In 1880, at age seventy‐two, his abrupt resignation surprised Court observers.

An ardent churchgoer since 1846 and active in Presbyterian affairs, Strong held offices in the American Tract Society, the American Sunday‐School Union, the American Bible Society, and the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions. Convinced that secularization threatened America's heritage, he headed the National Reform Association that wanted an amended Constitution establishing “Lord Jesus Christ as the Governor among nations, and His revealed will as of supreme authority. …” At Union Theological Seminary, Strong disclaimed wanting a national church, but insisted that Christian principles be enforced on marriage, Sabbath observances, blasphemy, and so forth. Strong voted his principles against the Mormons in Reynolds v. United States (1879), but it was Justice David J. Brewer who inserted Strong's “Christian nation” conviction into Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1891).

Strong typified Americans during the age of industrialization. As a lawyer, he worked to facilitate capitalism; as a moralist, he deplored the social consequences without seeing accurately the causal factors.

Bibliography

Stanley I. Kutler , William Strong, in The Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 1789–1969, edited by Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, vol. 2 (1969), pp. 1153–1180.
Jon C. Teaford , Toward a Christian Nation: Religion, Law and Justice Strong, Journal of Presbyterian History 54 (Winter 1976): 422–437.

Michael B. Dougan