Miller, Samuel F. (1816–1890)

• Author: Charles W. Mccurdy
• Pages: 1731-1734

Page 1731

Samuel Freeman Miller was a towing figure on the Supreme Court from his appointment by ABRAHAM LINCOLN in 1862 until his death in 1890. He sat with four Chief Justices, participated in more than 5,000 decisions of the Court, and was its spokesman in ninety-five cases involving construction of the Constitution. No previous member of the Court had written as many constitutional opinions.

Page 1732

Miller's contemporaries regarded him as one of the half-dozen great Justices in American history, a remarkable achievement for a self-educated lawyer who had never held public office, either in his native Kentucky or in adopted Iowa, prior to his appointment to the Court. Justice HORACE GRAY claimed that if his legal training had been less "unsystematic and deficient," Miller would have been "second only to [ JOHN ] MARSHALL."

Miller looked and acted the part of a great magistrate. He was tall and massive; he had a warm, unaffected disposition and was said to be "as ready to talk to a hod-carrier as to a cardinal." His instinct for what he often called "the main points, the controlling questions," his impatience with antique learning and philosophical abstraction, and his unrivaled reputation for industry, integrity, and independence all enhanced his stature. Candor and intellectual self-reliance pervaded his opinions, and he often stated quite bluntly his assumption that law and practical good sense were of one piece: "This is the honest and fair view of the subject, and we think it conflicts with no rule of law" (Pettigrew v. United States, 1878); "if this is not DUE PROCESS OF LAW it ought to be" (Davidson v. New Orleans, 1878); "this is just and sound policy" (Iron Silver Mining Co. v. Campbell, 1890).

Statecraft rather than formal jurisprudence was Miller's forte, and he emerged as the Court's balance-wheel soon after coming to the bench. His career ultimately spanned three tumultuous decades in which the Justices constantly quarreled, often rancorously, about the scope of federal and state powers and the Court's role in protecting private rights against the alleged usurpations of both. Scores of cases involved highly charged political issues. Yet Miller always remained detached. He never permitted differences of opinion to affect personal relations with his brethren; he met counsels of heat and passion with chilly distaste. Miller's capacity for detachment was, in part, a matter of personality. But it was also a function of his modest view of the Court's role in the American system of government. He resisted doctrinal formulations that curtailed the discretion of other lawmakers, spoke self-consciously about "my conservative habit of deciding no more than is necessary in any case," and often succeeded in accommodating warring factions of more doctrinaire colleagues by narrowing the issue before the Court. As early as 1870, Chief Justice SALMON P. CHASE said he was "beyond question, the dominant personality upon the bench."

The first principles of Miller's constitutional understanding were derived from HENRY CLAY and the Whig party. Although he abandoned the Whigs for the Republican party in 1854, Miller never ceased to regard Clay as the quintessential American statesman or to reaffirm the Kentucky sage's belief in a BROAD CONSTRUCTION of national powers, the primacy of the legislative department in shaping public policy, and the duty of government at all levels to encourage material growth. Miller's adherence to the first two principles was especially apparent in his work on the CHASE COURT. In EX PARTE MILLIGAN (1866), he joined the minority of four, concurring, who suggested that Congress might constitutionally have established martial rule in...