In the Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1873) – a pivotal decision on the meaning of Section 1 of the relatively new Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution—Swayne dissented with justices Salmon P. Chase, Stephen Johnson Field, and Joseph Bradley. Field's dissent was important, and presaged later decisions broadening the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, four years later Swayne joined the majority in Munn v. Illinois, with Field still dissenting. His main distinction was his staunch judicial support of the president's war measures: the Union blockade (Prize Cases, 67 U.S. 635 (1862)); issuance of paper money (i.e., greenbacks in the Legal Tender Cases); and support for the presidential prerogative to declare martial law (Ex Parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866)).

He is most famous for his majority opinion in Springer v. United States, 102 U.S. 586 (1881), which upheld the Federal income tax imposed under the Revenue Act of 1864.

In Gelpcke v. City of Dubuque, 68 U.S. 175 (1864), Swayne wrote the majority opinion, repudiating a claim that the Iowa constitution could impair legal obligations to bondholders. When contracts are made on the basis of trust in past judicial decisions those contracts could not be impaired by any subsequent construction of the law. "We shall never immolate truth, justice, and the law, because a state tribunal has erected the altar and decreed the sacrifice." According to Lurie, he strongly supported "the contractual rights of railroad bond holders, even in the face of repudiation sanctioned both by the Iowa state legislature and state supreme court. Obligations sacred to law are not to be destroyed simply because 'a state tribunal has erected the altar and decreed the sacrifice.'"

Another of Justice Swayne's sons, Noah Swayne, was a lawyer in Toledo and donated the land for Swayne Field, the former field for the Toledo Mud Hens baseball team.

After his death in 1884, Justice Swayne is buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Chief Justice Edward Douglass White and justice-designate Edwin M. Stanton (President Ulysses S. Grant's nomination of Stanton was confirmed by the Senate, but Stanton died before he could be sworn in) are also buried there.

A collection of Swayne's legal papers, pre-dating his service as a Justice, is housed at the Ohio Historical Society, and correspondence with him is also located at other repositories.

See also

  • List of federal judges appointed by Abraham Lincoln
  • Nomination and confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States
  • List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
  • Chase Court
  • Taney Court
  • Waite Court

References

Some data drawn in part from:

  • Noah Haynes Swayne at Supreme Court Historical Society
  • Oyez Official Supreme Court media, Noah Haynes Swayne.

Further reading

  • Barnes, William Horatio. (1875) "Noah H. Swayne, Associate Justice. -- In The Supreme Court of the United States", by W. Barnes. Part II of Barnes's Illustrated Cyclopedia of the American Government.
  • Bibliography, biography and location of papers, Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.