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Joseph P. Bradley
Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1870 to 1892. He was also a member of the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 United States presidential election.
The son of Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley, Bradley was born to humble beginnings in Berne, New York. He was the oldest of 12 children. He attended local schools and began teaching at the age of 16. In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced Joseph Bradley $250[citation needed] to study for the ministry at Rutgers University. He graduated in 1836. After graduation, he was made Principal of the Millstone Academy, and decided to study law.
He was persuaded by his Rutgers classmate Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen to join him in Newark and pursue legal studies at the Office of the Collector of the Port of Newark. He was admitted to the bar in 1839.
Bradley began in private practice in New Jersey, specializing in patent and railroad law, and he became very prominent in these fields and quite wealthy. Bradley remained dedicated to self-study throughout his life and collected an extensive library. He married Mary Hornblower in Newark in 1844. In 1851, Bradley, once employed as an actuary for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, submitted an article to the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries detailing an historical account of a Severan dynasty-era Roman life table compiled by the Roman jurist Ulpian in approximately 220 AD during the reign of Elagabalus (218–222) that was included in the Digesta seu Pandectae (533) codification ordered by Justinian I (527–565) of the Eastern Roman Empire.
On February 7, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Bradley as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the seat created by the Judiciary Act of 1869. Several weeks later, on March 21, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 46–9 vote. Bradley took the judicial oath of office on March 23, 1870, and remained on the Court until January 22, 1892. Bradley was the president's second nominee for the position. The first, Ebenezer R. Hoar was rejected by the Senate.
Bradley took a broad view of the national government's powers under the Commerce Clause but interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment somewhat narrowly, as did much of the rest of the court at the time. He authored the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 but was among the four dissenters in the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873. His interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in both cases remained the basis for subsequent rulings through the modern era.
Bradley concurred with the court's decision in Bradwell v. Illinois, which held that the right to practice law was not constitutionally protected under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Bradley disagreed with the majority opinion, apparently because it rested on the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, but concurred in the judgment on grounds that the clause did not protect women in their choice of vocation. The concurrence is noted for Bradley's description of womanhood: "The harmony, not to say identity, of interest and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband (...) The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator."
It was due to Bradley's intervention that prisoners charged in the Colfax Massacre of 1873 were freed, after he happened to attend their trial and ruled that the federal law they were charged under was unconstitutional. This resulted in the federal government's bringing the case on appeal to the Supreme Court as United States v. Cruikshank (1875). The court's ruling on this case meant that the federal government would not intervene on paramilitary and group attacks on individuals. It essentially opened the door to heightened paramilitary activity in the South that forced Republicans from office, suppressed black voting, and opened the way for white Democratic takeover of state legislatures, and resulting Jim Crow laws and passage of disfranchising constitutions.
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Joseph P. Bradley
Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1870 to 1892. He was also a member of the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 United States presidential election.
The son of Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley, Bradley was born to humble beginnings in Berne, New York. He was the oldest of 12 children. He attended local schools and began teaching at the age of 16. In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced Joseph Bradley $250[citation needed] to study for the ministry at Rutgers University. He graduated in 1836. After graduation, he was made Principal of the Millstone Academy, and decided to study law.
He was persuaded by his Rutgers classmate Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen to join him in Newark and pursue legal studies at the Office of the Collector of the Port of Newark. He was admitted to the bar in 1839.
Bradley began in private practice in New Jersey, specializing in patent and railroad law, and he became very prominent in these fields and quite wealthy. Bradley remained dedicated to self-study throughout his life and collected an extensive library. He married Mary Hornblower in Newark in 1844. In 1851, Bradley, once employed as an actuary for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company, submitted an article to the Journal of the Institute of Actuaries detailing an historical account of a Severan dynasty-era Roman life table compiled by the Roman jurist Ulpian in approximately 220 AD during the reign of Elagabalus (218–222) that was included in the Digesta seu Pandectae (533) codification ordered by Justinian I (527–565) of the Eastern Roman Empire.
On February 7, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Bradley as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to the seat created by the Judiciary Act of 1869. Several weeks later, on March 21, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 46–9 vote. Bradley took the judicial oath of office on March 23, 1870, and remained on the Court until January 22, 1892. Bradley was the president's second nominee for the position. The first, Ebenezer R. Hoar was rejected by the Senate.
Bradley took a broad view of the national government's powers under the Commerce Clause but interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment somewhat narrowly, as did much of the rest of the court at the time. He authored the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 but was among the four dissenters in the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873. His interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in both cases remained the basis for subsequent rulings through the modern era.
Bradley concurred with the court's decision in Bradwell v. Illinois, which held that the right to practice law was not constitutionally protected under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Bradley disagreed with the majority opinion, apparently because it rested on the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, but concurred in the judgment on grounds that the clause did not protect women in their choice of vocation. The concurrence is noted for Bradley's description of womanhood: "The harmony, not to say identity, of interest and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband (...) The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator."
It was due to Bradley's intervention that prisoners charged in the Colfax Massacre of 1873 were freed, after he happened to attend their trial and ruled that the federal law they were charged under was unconstitutional. This resulted in the federal government's bringing the case on appeal to the Supreme Court as United States v. Cruikshank (1875). The court's ruling on this case meant that the federal government would not intervene on paramilitary and group attacks on individuals. It essentially opened the door to heightened paramilitary activity in the South that forced Republicans from office, suppressed black voting, and opened the way for white Democratic takeover of state legislatures, and resulting Jim Crow laws and passage of disfranchising constitutions.