William Strong

(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

For more information on William Strong, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: May 6, 1808, Somers, Conn.
• Education: Yale University, B.A., 1828, M.A., 1831
• Previous government service: U.S. representative from Pennsylvania, 1847–51; justice, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 1857–68
• Appointed by President Ulysses Grant Feb. 7, 1870; replaced Robert C. Grier, who retired
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Feb., 18, 1870, by a voice vote; retired Dec. 14, 1880
• Died: Aug. 19, 1895, Lake Minnewaska, N.Y.

William Strong rarely wrote opinions for the Supreme Court during his 10-year term as an associate justice. He tended to side with the majority in decisions supporting property and contractual rights.

Justice Strong had a mixed record in civil rights cases. He joined the Court's majority in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) to restrict the rights of individuals under the 14th Amendment. However, he wrote for the Court in Strauder v. West Virginia (1880) the decision to strike down a state law excluding black people from juries. In a related case, Ex parte Virginia (1880), Justice Strong upheld a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that banned racial discrimination in jury selection.

Justice Strong retired from the Court in robust health at the age of 72. He wanted to set an example for three colleagues on the Court who continued to serve despite age-related health problems that interfered with their performance. Within two years, the three resigned.

William Strong served as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1870 to 1880. He is best remembered for his majority opinion in the controversial case of Knox v. Lee, 79 (12 Wall.) U.S. 457, 20 L. Ed. 287 (1871), commonly known as one of the Legal Tender cases.

Strong was born on May 6, 1808, in Somers, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale University in 1828 and received a master's degree from the same institution in 1831. He attended Yale Law School and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1832. He practiced law in Reading, Pennsylvania, for fifteen years.

In 1847 Strong entered politics with his election as a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He left Congress in 1851 and reentered private practice. In 1857 Strong began a term as a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He remained on the bench until 1868, when he resumed private law practice, this time in Philadelphia. During the Civil War, Strong changed his political affiliation from Democrat to Republican. This proved fortuitous, as President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, appointed Strong to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1870 to replace the retiring Justice Robert C. Grier, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

Strong's appointment and first year on the Court were marked by controversy concerning the Legal Tender cases. On the day he was nominated, the Court announced its decision in Hepburn v. Griswold, 75 U.S. 603, L. Ed. (1870), which dealt with the Legal Tender Act of 1862 (12 Stat. 345). The act, passed during the Civil War to finance the Union war effort, authorized the creation of paper money not redeemable in gold or silver. About $430 million of "greenbacks" were put into circulation, and this money by law had to be accepted for all taxes, debts, and other obligations, even those contracted before passage of the act.

The Court in Hepburn ruled, by a 4-3 vote, that Congress lacked the power to make the notes legal tender because the law violated the Fifth Amendment's guarantee against deprivation of property without due process of law. Grant's appointment of Strong and Joseph P. Bradley to the Supreme Court on the same day in 1870 was perceived as a court-packing scheme designed to overturn Hepburn.

This view proved correct. With Strong and Bradley on the bench, the Court agreed to reconsider the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Act. In 1871 Strong wrote the majority opinion in Knox v. Lee that reversed the Hepburn decision. This time the vote was 5-4 in favor of the act. Strong held that Congress had the authority to pass monetary acts such as the greenbacks law during a time of national emergency.

During the 1870s numerous civil rights cases came before the Court. In Blyew v. United States, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 581, 20 L. Ed. 638 (1872), Strong ruled that the federal government could not prosecute a white man accused of murdering several African Americans under a civil rights law because the deceased victims were not persons "in existence" as required by the act, and because the interests of witnesses were not strong enough to give the federal government exclusive jurisdiction over the crime. The crime occurred in Kentucky where black witnesses were prohibited by law from testifying against whites. In Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. (10 Otto) 303, 25 L. Ed. 664 (1880), Strong ruled that a law that allowed only white males to serve as jurors violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Following his resignation from the Court in 1880, Strong devoted his time to many religious causes and organizations. He led the National Reform Association, which proposed a constitutional amendment that proclaimed Jesus Christ as the supreme authority. Though he disclaimed the idea of a national church, Strong believed Christian principles should govern many facets of U.S. society. Strong died on August 19, 1895, in Minnewaska, New York.

Quotes:

"The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything -- and it works."

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