Robert Cooper Grier

(b. Cumberland County, Pa., 5 Mar. 1794; d. Philadelphia, Pa., 25 Sep. 1870; interred West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala‐Cynwyd, Pa.), associate justice, 1846–1870. The eldest of the eleven children of the Rev. Isaac Grier and Elizabeth Cooper, Grier grew up in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and then Northumberland, where his father farmed, preached, and taught school. Educated in his boyhood by his Presbyterian father, Grier enrolled as a junior at Dickinson College and graduated in 1812. After his father's death in 1815, Grier, at age twenty‐one, assumed control of his father's academy and began studying law. Admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1817, he practiced in Bloomsburg and Danville, supported his mother, and provided for the education of his ten brothers and sisters. In 1829 he married the wealthy Isabella Rose.

In 1833 Grier was appointed judge of the Allegheny County District Court. The appointment was something of a political accident, and his elevation to the supreme bench was equally accidental. Henry Baldwin, the “Pennsylvania Justice,” had died in 1844, and Presidents John Tyler and James K. Polk had been unable to find a successor until Polk nominated the noncontroversial (and almost unknown) Grier.

During his twenty‐three years on the Court, Grier occupied a middle ground. In the License Cases (1847), he upheld the states' police power even when it interfered with interstate commerce, but he drew the line in the Passenger Cases (1849), which involved two states levying taxes on ship masters. The eventual solution, found in the decision in Cooley v. Board of Wardens of the Port of the Philadelphia (1852) and known as *“selective exclusiveness,” met with Grier's approbation (see Commerce Power).

In Marshall v. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Co. (1853), Grier upheld the Court's jurisdiction in a diversity of citizenship case involving corporations, but found the contract contrary to the public interest: lobbyists were “a compact corps of venal solicitors” (p. 335). Usually he supported states' rights, notably in Woodruff v. Trapnall (1850) and Waring v. Clarke (1847).

Grier identified with the southern wing of the Court in slavery cases. In 1847 he irritated Pittsburgh abolitionists in his charge to the jury in a fugitive slave case. In Moore v. Illinois (1852), he found constitutional sanction for double jeopardy for those who aided runaways. But he refused to consider armed opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act as treason since it did not amount to levying war.

In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) Grier played a minor role. Initially Grier wished to avoid the question of citizenship for blacks, but the consensus broke down. Determined that the Court's vote not be strictly sectional, Justice John Catron enlisted President James Buchanan to lobby Grier, who willingly promised his full support for Chief Justice Roger Taney's opinion and indicated the direction the opinion would take. In his inaugural address of 4 March 1857, Buchanan disingenuously mentioned the case. When the decision was announced two days later, northern critics furiously charged Taney with tipping off the president, although Grier was the real culprit.

Although known as a “doughface,” a northern man with southern principles, Grier remained a committed Unionist. On the circuit in United States v. William Smith (1861), he instructed the jury that the Confederate government had no recognized legal existence, a view repeated that in the Prize Cases (1863), which sustained President Abraham Lincoln's blockade and war policy. Grier was less supportive in other areas. He questioned the validity of the income tax; opposed on circuit the confiscation of a newspaper; and interpreted narrowly the uses of paper money.

Grier opposed Radical Reconstruction. In Ex parte Milligan (1866), Grier sided with Justice David Davis's extreme opinion and leaked the vote to Attorney General Orville Browning. He voted against test oaths in Cummings v. Missouri (1867) and Ex parte Garland (1867) and opposed the delay in deciding Ex parte McCardle (1869), which allowed time for Congress to remove the court's jurisdiction (see Judicial Power and Jurisdiction). In Texas v. White (1869), he argued eloquently that the conquered Republic of Texas was politically not a state.

Grier's health declined seriously after 1867. In conference on the Legal Tender Cases (1870–1871), his mind and votes wandered. Justice Stephen Johnson Field led a delegation urging his retirement, and Grier complied.

Grier was a large, ruddy man given to trout fishing. He was at once a natural‐born vulgarian—coarse and harsh—and an above‐average writer with interests in Greek and Latin.

Bibliography

• Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Dred Scott Case; Its Significance in American Law and Politics (1978).
• David M. Silver, Lincoln's Supreme Court (1957)

— Michael B. Dougan

• Born: Mar. 5, 1794, Cumberland County, Pa.
• Education: Dickinson College, B.A., 1812; studied law privately
• Previous government service: judge, Allegheny County District Court, Pa., 1833–46
• Appointed by President James K. Polk Aug. 3, 1846; replaced Henry Baldwin, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Aug. 4, 1846, by a voice vote; retired Jan. 31, 1870
• Died: Sept. 25, 1870, Philadelphia, Pa.

Robert C. Grier was a schoolteacher and principal before becoming a lawyer. He was an active supporter of the Jacksonian Democratic party. President James K. Polk appointed Grier to the Supreme Court because of his loyalty to Democratic party ideas on government and law.

Justice Grier's most important opinion for the Court was the Prize Cases (1863), which supported President Abraham Lincoln's coastal blockade of Southern ports during the Civil War. Owners of ships and cargoes taken by the federal government as prizes of the war argued that Lincoln's blockade was illegal. Writing for the Court, Justice Grier emphasized the President's duty to preserve the federal union in a time of crisis as justification for the blockade and for the seizure of ships that violated the blockade.

Robert Cooper Grier served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1846 to 1870. Grier is best remembered for his unusual actions during the deliberation of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857).

Grier was born March 5, 1794, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Dickinson College in 1812 and was admitted to the bar in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1817. A year later, he relocated to Danville, Pennsylvania, and established a successful law practice. In 1833, he was appointed judge of the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, district court, where he remained until 1846.

With the death in 1844 of Supreme Court justice Henry Baldwin, who was a Pennsylvania native, President James Polk sought to appoint a Democrat from that state. After failing to find a candidate who could pass Senate confirmation, Polk turned in 1846 to the noncontroversial and relatively unknown Grier.

During his term on the Supreme Court, Grier held a centrist position. A strong believer in states' rights, he generally was opposed to federal legislation that intruded on state police powers. This philosophy led him to side with the Southern states in upholding their right to keep slaves and to recapture runaway slaves who had escaped to Northern states.

Grier has been criticized for his actions during the deliberation of Dred Scott, generally recognized as the most important pre-Civil War case concerning the legitimacy of slavery and the rights of African Americans. The circumstances of the ruling as well as the ruling itself increased the division between the Northern and Southern states.

Dred Scott was a slave owned by an army surgeon, John Emerson, who resided in Missouri. In 1836, Emerson took Scott to Fort Snelling, in what is now Minnesota but was then a territory in which slavery had been expressly forbidden by the Missouri Compromise legislation of 1820. In 1846, Scott sued for his freedom in Missouri state court, arguing that his residence in a free territory released him from slavery. The Missouri Supreme Court rejected his argument, and Scott appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Grier and the other members of the Court heard arguments on Dred Scott in 1855 and 1856. A key issue was whether African Americans could be citizens of the United States, even if they were not slaves. Grier did not want to address the citizenship issue, but other justices who were Southerners wanted the Court's vote to transcend sectional lines. Justice John Catron took the unusual and unethical step of asking President James Buchanan to lobby Grier on this issue. Buchanan wrote to Grier, who in turn breached the separation between the executive and judicial branches by replying to the president. Grier agreed to side with the majority, which held that there was no power under the Constitution to grant African Americans citizenship. Grier set out in detail how the Court would rule on the case. Buchanan, in his inaugural address on March 4, 1857, mentioned the case. When the decision was released two days later, opponents of the decision attributed the president's remarks to inside information provided by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. In fact, Grier was the informer.

Although Grier was sympathetic to Southern concerns, he remained a Unionist. During the Civil War, Grier voted to support the power of the president to enforce a blockade of the Confederate shoreline. The Prize cases, 67 U.S. 635, 17 L. Ed. 459; 70 U.S. 451, 18 L. Ed. 197; 70 U.S. 514, 18 L. Ed. 200; 70 U.S. 559, 18 L. Ed. 220 (1863), involved the disposition of vessels captured by the Union navy during the blockade of Southern ports ordered by President Abraham Lincoln in the absence of a congressional declaration of war. Under existing laws of war, the Union could claim the vessels as property only if the conflict was a declared war. The Supreme Court rejected prior law and ruled that the president has the authority to resist force without the need for special legislative action. Grier noted that the "[p]resident was bound to meet [the Civil War] in the shape it presented itself, without waiting for the Congress to baptize it with a name; and no name given to it by him or them could change the fact."

Grier's health began to fail in 1867. He retired in 1870, after members of the Court requested that he resign because he could no longer carry out his duties. He died on September 25, 1870, in Philadelphia.

For those of a similar name, see Bobby Grier.

Robert Cooper Grier
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office August 10, 1846 – January 31, 1870
Nominated by	James K. Polk
Preceded by	Henry Baldwin
Succeeded by	William Strong
Born	March 5, 1794(1794-03-05) Cumberland County, Pennsylvania
Died	September 25, 1870 (aged 76) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Political party	Jacksonian, Democratic
Religion	Presbyterian

Robert Cooper Grier (March 5, 1794-September 25, 1870), was an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Grier was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania to a Presbyterian minister, who tutored him until he entered Dickinson College. Grier graduated from Dickinson in only one year, and remained there as an instructor until taking a position at a school his father ran. He succeeded his father as headmaster in 1815.

While a teacher, Grier read law on his own time, and passed the bar in 1817, at which time he entered private practice. Grier married Isabelle Rose in 1829 and the couple had one child.

Grier was a political organizer for the Jacksonian Democrats, and in 1833 Grier was given a patronage appointment to a judgeship on the Pennsylvania state District Court for Allegheny County, newly created for him. He served there for 13 years, developing a reputation for competence.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin died in 1844 during the administration of President Tyler. Tyler made two attempted appointments to the seat, Edward King and John M. Read, both rejected, and seat remained open when James K. Polk ascended to the presidency. Polk also made two nominations, one of whom refused the appointment, future President James Buchanan, and one of whom was not confirmed by the Senate, George Washington Woodward. Polk finally nominated Grier, plucking him from relative obscurity. Grier was unanimously approved by the Senate, and joined a fellow Dickinson alumnus, Roger Brooke Taney, on the Court.

Grier served on the court until 1870, at which point he was quite frail, having suffered three strokes in 1867. His participation on the court was extremely limited by the end of his term, and he retired only after his colleagues pressed him to do so. He died a year later.

Grier was one of two northerners to side with the majority in the Dred Scott decision, along with Justice Nelson, and after the outbreak of the Civil War he supported the Union along with Nelson. Grier also wrote the opinion on the Prize Cases, which declared Lincoln's blockade of Southern ports constitutional. He is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.

References

Data drawn in part from the Supreme Court Historical Society and Oyez.

• Robert Cooper Grier at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

External links

• Biography-West Laurel Hill Cemetery web site

Legal offices
Preceded by Henry Baldwin	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States August 10, 1846 – January 31, 1870	Succeeded by William Strong

Supreme Court of the United States

The Taney Court Chief Justice: Roger Brooke Taney (1836–1864) 1846–1851: J. McLean | J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | J. McKinley | P.V. Daniel | S. Nelson | L. Woodbury | R.C. Grier 1851–1852: J. McLean | J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | J. McKinley | P.V. Daniel | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | B.R. Curtis 1853–1857: J. McLean | J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | P.V. Daniel | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | B.R. Curtis | J.A. Campbell 1858–1860: J. McLean | J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | P.V. Daniel | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | J.A. Campbell | N. Clifford 1860–1861: J. McLean | J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | J.A. Campbell | N. Clifford 1862–1863: J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis 1863–1864: J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field The Chase Court Chief Justice: Salmon Portland Chase (1864–1873) 1864–1865: J.M. Wayne | J. Catron | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field 1865–1867: J.M. Wayne | S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field 1867–1870: S. Nelson | R.C. Grier | N. Clifford | N.H. Swayne | S.F. Miller | D. Davis | S.J. Field

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