MCLEAN, JOHN

John McLean served as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-two years, one of the longest tenures in the history of the Court.

"In the [Dred Scott v. Sandford] argument, it was said that a colored citizen would not be an agreeable member of society. This is more a matter of taste than law … [for] under the late treaty with Mexico we made citizens of all grades, combinations, and colors."
—John McLean

McLean was born on March 11, 1785, in New Jersey but was raised primarily near Lebanon, Ohio, where his father staked out land that later became the family farm. McLean attended a county school and later was tutored by two schoolmasters, Presbyterian ministers,

and paid them with money he earned working as a farm hand. In 1804, at the age of nineteen, he began working as an apprentice to the clerk of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati and also studied law with Arthur St. Clair and John S. Gano, two distinguished Cincinnati lawyers.

In 1807 McLean was admitted to the bar, married, and returned to Lebanon to open a printing office. He began publishing the Lebanon Western Star, a partisan journal supporting the Jeffersonian party. Three years later McLean gave his newspaper and printing business to his brother to concentrate full-time on the practice of law. At the same time, McLean, who had been raised Presbyterian, converted to Methodism, an experience that would have a strong impact throughout his life. He was active in church affairs and wrote articles about the Bible, and in 1849 he was named honorary president of the American Sunday School Union.

In 1812, after a year serving as examiner in the U.S. Land Office in Cincinnati, McLean was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of twenty-seven and was reelected two years later. During his two terms in the House, McLean was a staunch supporter of President james madison and his efforts to wage the war of 1812. McLean, unhappy with the salary paid to members of Congress and wanting to be closer to his wife and children, chose not to run again in 1816 and returned home. Back in Ohio, McLean easily won election to one of four judgeships on the Ohio Supreme Court, a demanding position that required him to "ride the circuit," or hear cases throughout the state.

In 1822 McLean was again drawn to politics and made an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate. Shortly after McLean lost the election, President james monroe appointed him commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington, a direct result of McLean's earlier hard work to secure Monroe's nomination for the presidency. The position meant a large increase in salary and led to McLean's appointment the next year to the position of postmaster general. During his six years as postmaster general, McLean expanded the number of routes and deliveries, established thousands of new post offices, and increased the size of the u.s. postal service to almost 27,000 employees.

Though he served as postmaster under john quincy adams, McLean used his considerable political skills to establish ties with andrew jackson, who defeated Adams for the presidency

in 1828. As a result, McLean was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, winning confirmation easily.

McLean remained interested in politics during his tenure on the Supreme Court and was even seriously considered as a nominee for the presidency at several national conventions, though his name was withdrawn from consideration each time. His last bid came in 1860, a year before his death, when he was one of the Republican party's candidates. The nomination instead went to abraham lincoln.

While an associate justice on the High Court, McLean wrote a number of significant opinions, including a strong dissent in the Dred Scott case of 1857 (dred scott v. sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (Mem), 19 How. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691). In Dred Scott, a slave sued his master for freedom after he had been taken to live on free soil for several years. The Supreme Court held that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress could not pass legislation preventing slavery. McLean, however, who had long opposed slavery, argued that Congress could exclude slavery from the territories and could also liberate slaves living in "free" states. McLean's most significant majority opinion came in 1834 in wheaton v. peters, a dispute between two of the Court's reporters of decisions (33 U.S. 591, 8 Pet. 591, 8 L. Ed. 1055 (Mem.) (U.S. Pa., Jan. Term 1834)). Richard Peters sought to republish decisions that had previously been published by henry wheaton, his predecessor. Wheaton, worried that he would sell fewer opinions and thus lose profits, sued Peters, alleging copyright infringement. McLean, writing for the Court, held that the opinions were in the public domain and thus no copyright had been violated.

Though McLean enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a jurist, his personal life was less happy. Three of his four daughters died young, as did a brother, and he also lost his first wife in 1840. He and his second wife had one son who died only a few weeks after birth. Though McLean's own health began to fail as early as 1859, he continued to serve on the Court until his death from pneumonia April 4, 1861.

further readings

Cushman, Clare. 1995. The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies 1789–1995. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.

Witt, Elder, ed. 1990. Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. 2d ed. Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.

McLean, John (b. Morris County, N.J., 11 Mar. 1785; d. Cincinnati, Ohio, 4 Apr. 1861; interred Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati), associate justice, 1830–1861. The son of Ulsterman Fergus McLean (originally McLain) and Sophia Blackford, McLean grew up in a succession of frontier communities before settling in Warren County, Ohio, in 1797. Despite highly irregular schooling, he studied law with John S. Gano and Arthur St. Clair in Cincinnati in 1804. He established a Democratic newspaper at Lebanon, Ohio, after admission to the bar, and by 1811 was examiner in the United States Land Office in Cincinnati.

Elected as a War Hawk to the United States House of Representatives in 1812 and reelected in 1814, he actively promoted the presidential candidacy of James Monroe. He returned to Ohio and served on the state supreme court until 1822 when President Monroe appointed him commissioner of the General Land Office. Made postmaster general in 1823, he oversaw a tremendous expansion in westward routes and the elevation of the office to cabinet status. McLean remained in office under President John Quincy Adams.

Although an early supporter of John C. Calhoun, he adroitly courted Andrew Jackson but kept Adams from finding grounds to dismiss him. After Jackson's victory in 1828, McLean's reward was appointment to the Supreme Court.

Known as the “Politician on the Supreme Court” during his thirty‐year coquettish quest for the presidency, McLean flirted successively with Jackson Democrats, anti‐Jackson Democrats, Antimasons, Whigs, Free Soilers, and Republicans (see Extrajudicial Activities). McLean saw nothing injudicious in his quest, or as a devout Methodist, any conflict between politics and religion. He did not participate in Smith v. Swormstedt (1853), occasioned by the sectional division of the Methodist church, but agreed that Stephen Girard lawfully could ban clergy from his academy (Vidal etal v. Philadelphia, 1844).

McLean began his judicial career as a nationalist, concurring with Marshall in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832) (see Cherokee Cases). He favored state banking, dissented in Craig v. Missouri (1830) and convinced the court that state bank notes were not bills of credit in *Briscoe v. Commonwealth Bank of Kentucky (1837). Another states' rights opinion was Ex parte Dorr (1845), where the court refused a writ of habeas corpus for the captured leader of Rhode Island's Dorr Rebellion. McLean wanted to be chief justice, but his pro‐Indian decisions and opposition to Peggy Eaton severed his friendly relations with Jackson.

States' rights commercial issues bothered McLean. He supported the rulings of New York v. Miln (1837), the License Cases (1847), and the Passenger Cases (1849), but he rejected the doctrine of “selective exclusiveness” announced in *Cooley v. Board of Wardens (1852). His claim for exclusive federal authority led Justice Curtis to label Justices McLean and Wayne “the most high‐toned federalists on the bench.” Federalism marked McLean's decision in Piqua Branch of State Bank of Ohio v. Knoop (1854), where he protected a bank charter from state modification. But McLean disallowed claims for a federal common law of copyright in Wheaton v. Peters (1834).

McLean declined President John Tyler's offer to become of secretary of war, and began looking first to the Whigs and then the Free Soilers. His abhorrence of slavery was deeply rooted, and in an 1848 open letter he proclaimed that slavery existed only where established by law. He was outvoted in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), where the Court permitted the kidnapping from a free state of an alleged runaway, but he rejected the claim of attorney William H. Seward in Jones v. Van Zandt (1847) that a “higher law” permitted a man to harbor fugitive slaves.

McLean has been blamed, perhaps unfairly, for precipitating the Dred Scott decision (see Scott v. Sandford, 1857). After Justices McLean and Benjamin R. Curtis announced plans to file dissents to Justice Samuel Nelson's initial hands‐off decision, the majority changed its mind and agreed to tackle the controverted issues. McLean's dissent read well, although in research and argument Justice Curtis's had the edge.

The case made McLean a possible presidential contender despite his advancing age. His name was mentioned in 1860 at the Constitutional Union convention, and he received twelve votes on the first ballot at the Republican convention. In early 1861 his health failed, and he died in Cincinnati on 4 April 1861.

McLean's persistent quest for the presidency prejudiced both contemporary and historical opinion against him. In 1848 Senator Henry S. Foote charged McLean violated judicial ethics, but there is little to suggest that partisan considerations influenced McLean's decisions. Forcing Chief Justice Roger B. Taney to commit the court's worst “self‐inflicted wound” may have been his greatest contribution to American history.

Bibliography

Don E. Fehrenbacher , The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics (1978).
Frank Otto Gatel , John McLean, in The Justices of the United States Supreme Court, 1789–1969, edited by Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, vol. 1 (1969), pp. 535–570.

Michael B. Dougan

John McLean

The American politician and judge John McLean (1785-1861) was perhaps the most politically conscious justice in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

John McLean was born in Morris County, N.J., on March 11, 1785, to Fergus McLean, a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian weaver turned farmer, and Sophia Blackford McLean. The family moved several times with stops in western Virginia and Kentucky before settling in Warren County, Ohio, about 40 miles from Cincinnati, in 1797. In this frontier atmosphere McLean managed to get an irregular but sound education. His legal education was gained, starting in 1804, by simultaneously serving as apprentice to the clerk of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas and reading law with Arthur St. Clair, Jr., for a 2-year period. In 1807 he founded a Jeffersonian weekly, Western Star, at Lebanon and married Rebecca Edwards. They had four daughters and three sons.

McLean became an enthusiastic Methodist through conversion by a circuit rider in 1811 and remained active in the faith throughout his life. Republican activities led in 1812 to his nomination and election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he supported the administration in the fight with England. In 1816 the Ohio Legislature elected him to the state supreme court. A preview of his work on the U.S. Supreme Court was his opinion in the case of the slave Thomas Lunsford, in which he engaged in obiter dicta, maintaining that slavery was contrary to natural justice, but that "as judge I am sworn to support the Constitution of the United States." In Congress, McLean had effectively supported James Monroe's nomination.

In 1822 McLean was appointed commissioner of the Public Land Office. The following year he was appointed postmaster general and through energy and ability brought expansion and efficiency to the office, where he remained until 1829. Through his example the postmastership was raised to Cabinet status in 1829. In the bitter Adams-Jackson campaign of 1828 McLean displayed enough political adroitness to be both retained by Adams and ultimately appointed to the Supreme Court by Jackson.

But if McLean's appointment was due to political acumen, he was also considered one of the two best lawyers in the West. There has been no thorough examination of all his opinions delivered in more than 30 years on the Federal bench, and thus his reputation as a judicial craftsman has suffered. With emphasis placed on his opinions in great cases in which his reasoning was based largely on nonlegal factors, McLean emerges as a nationalist who was well aware of the needs of the business community. He was, however, able to adjust his nationalism as circumstances provided. He also usually practiced judicial activism—considering questions that were not essential to the decision at hand, just as he had done on the state bench. The slavery questions illustrate well his values. In Groves v. Slaughter (1841), he upheld the right of Mississippi to restrict the introduction of slaves from other states. But even though it was "not necessary" to the decision, McLean restated his nationalism by holding that the power to regulate commerce rested exclusively with Congress. The following year in Prigg v. Pa., he continued his reasoning that slavery was subject only to state regulations by asserting that in the North "every person is presumed to be free regardless of color." Thus the personal liberty laws of northern states were constitutional. Finally, his insistence on discussing Congress's authority to prohibit slavery in the territories provided five proslavery justices with the excuse to respond and made the Dred Scott case a cause célèbre. In a long dissent he held that Scott should be free. McLean was the most pronounced opponent of slavery to sit in antebellum days.

A large, impressive man in appearance, McLean is known for the presidential aspirations which governed his last 30 years on the bench. Virtually every election saw him as an active contender, and virtually every party at one time or another received his attention; at the age of 75 he sought the Republican nomination. McLean was widowed in 1840 and he married again in 1843, to Sarah Bella Garrard. He died of pneumonia on April 4, 1861.

Further Reading

Francis P. Weisenburger, The Life of John McLean: A Politician on the United States Supreme Court (1937), effectively treats McLean's political life but is less thorough on his judicial career.

Additional Sources

McLean, John, The wind at my back: memoirs of an Irish immigrant, Riverdale, N.Y.: Malcolm Publications, 1995. □

John McLean , 1785–1861, American political figure and jurist, b. Morris co., N.J. His family moved to Ohio, where he studied law, was admitted (1807) to the bar, and practiced in Lebanon. He served in the House of Representatives (1813–16), was an associate justice of the Ohio supreme court (1816–22), and commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office (1822–23). President Monroe appointed him Postmaster General in 1823, and he was reappointed by John Quincy Adams. McLean resigned in 1829 because of disagreement with Andrew Jackson on the question of patronage. Jackson, however, appointed (1829) him to the U.S. Supreme Court where he served as an associate justice until his death; he is perhaps best remembered for his dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott Case .

Bibliography: See biography by F. P. Weisenburger (1937, repr. 1971).