Woodbury, Levi (b. Francestown, N.H., 22 Dec. 1789; d. Portsmouth, N.H., 4 Sept. 1851; interred Harmony Grove Cemetery, Portsmouth), associate justice, 1845–1851. Levi Woodbury, son of Peter and Mary Woodbury, studied law with Judge Jeremiah Smith and at the Litchfield Law School. He was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Francestown, New Hampshire, in 1812. An ardent Jeffersonian Republican, Woodbury in 1817 was appointed associate justice of the state superior court, where in the same year he joined in a decision favoring the Republican takeover of his alma mater, Dartmouth College. In June 1819 he married Elizabeth Williams Clapp, daughter of a wealthy Republican merchant of Portsmouth, who would help him politically. In 1823 a faction of independent Republicans, with help from Federalists, elected Woodbury governor of New Hampshire.
Factional infighting accounted for Woodbury's unsuccessful bid for reelection, but in 1825 he was first elected to the legislature and then to the United States Senate. He began his senatorial career as a supporter of John Quincy Adams but rather quickly switched to the Jacksonians. In 1831, having chosen not to seek another term in the Senate, Woodbury was appointed secretary of the navy by President Andrew
Jackson. In 1834 Jackson appointed Woodbury secretary of the treasury, a position he held, despite complaints about his competence, until 1841, Martin Van Buren having carried him over into his term as president. Woodbury returned to the United States Senate in 1841, having been elected by the New Hampshire legislature as a Democrat. President James K. Polk indicated on 20 September 1845 he would appoint Woodbury to the United States Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Joseph
Story. On 23 December 1845, Polk submitted the nomination to the Senate, which confirmed Woodbury on 3 January 1846.
For the most part, Woodbury joined the mainstream of the Taney Court, although occasionally his penchant for states' rights prompted a dissenting opinion. For example in
Waring v. Clarke (1847), he dissented from the Court's ruling that federal admiralty jurisdiction (see
Admiralty and Maritime Law) extended to waters ninety‐five miles north of New Orleans. He likewise disagreed with the Court's decision in the
Passenger Cases (1849), which ruled that state head taxes on incoming immigrants violated the federal Commerce Clause (see
Commerce Power). His dissenting opinions expressed his fear that the majority's decision might lead to a future ruling that a state could not exclude emancipated slaves, a result that would outrage the South and disrupt the union. Earlier, Woodbury had made clear his proslavery views when he wrote the opinion for the Court in
Jones v. Van Zandt (1847), which ruled in favor of a slaveowner who sued a Northerner for illegally harboring a
fugitive slave. He generally supported the Taney Court's decisions on the
contracts clause, writing for the majority in
Planters' Bank v. Sharp (1848), which held that a state could not revoke a bank's right to transfer bills and notes that had been granted to it in its charter, and concurring in
Cook v. Moffat (1847), which ruled that a state
bankruptcy law could not discharge a resident's obligations under a contract made out of state.
All in all, Woodbury possessed an acute legal mind, but his brief tenure and his tendency to write overly long, convoluted opinions compromised his sojourn on the Supreme Court.
Robert M. Ireland
