Nathan Clifford
Nathan Clifford (
August 18,
1803–
July 25,
1881) was an
American statesman, diplomat and jurist.
Nathan Clifford was born of old
Yankee stock in
Rumney, New Hampshire to a farmer and his wife, the only son of seven children (His great-great-grandmother, Ann Smith, wife of Israel Clifford, was the accuser of
Goody Cole.) He attended the public schools of that town, then the
Haverhill Academy in
New Hampshire, and finally the
New Hampton Literary Institute. After teaching school for a time, he studied law in the offices of
Josiah Quincy and was admitted to the bar in
Maine in
1827, establishing his first practice in
Newfield, Maine.
He served in the Maine House of Representatives from
1830 to
1834 and served as Speaker of that house the last two years. He was then Maine Attorney General from
1834 until
1838, when he was elected as a
Democrat to the
26th and
27th Congresses, serving
March 4,
1839 through
March 3,
1843, and representing the Second and then the Third District. He was not a candidate for re-election in
1842.
In
1846,
President James K. Polk appointed him 19th
Attorney General of the United States. Clifford served in Polk's
Cabinet from
October 17,
1846, to
March 17,
1848. Immediately after completing his service with the
Justice Department he became the U.S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to
Mexico, serving from
March 18,
1848 to
September 6,
1849. It was through Clifford that the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was arranged with Mexico, by which
California became a part of the United States.
Following his service in the diplomatic corps, Clifford resumed the practice of law in
Portland, Maine.
|
Associate Justice Nathan Clifford, 1868 |
In
1858,
James Buchanan appointed him an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was confirmed by a narrow margin of 26 votes to 23 in the Senate. Senators were hesitant about placing a pro-slavery Democrat on the
Supreme Court. His specialties were commercial and maritime law, Mexican land grants, and procedure and practice. Though he rarely declared any legal philosophy about the
Constitution, Justice Clifford believed in a sharp dividing line between federal and state authority. His major constitutional contribution may have been his dissent in
Loan Association vs. Topeka (20 Wallace 655) in which he set aside "
natural law," or any ground other than clear constitutional provision, from the court's reasoning in striking down legislative acts. Justice Clifford's opinions were comprehensive essays on law. Justice Clifford wrote the majority opinion of the Supreme Court in 398 cases.[
1] He served on the Court for 23 years, beginning in
January 28,
1858, and continuing until his death from the complications of a
stroke.
Clifford was president of the
Electoral Commission convened in
1877 to determine the outcome of the
U.S. presidential election, 1876. Clifford voted for
Samuel Tilden (a fellow Democrat), but
Rutherford B. Hayes famously won by a single vote in the
Compromise of 1877.
Clifford died in
Cornish, Maine in
1881; he was interred in Evergreen Cemetery, in Portland, Maine. The Nathan Clifford Elementary School in Portland is named for him.
Clifford's son William Henry Clifford was a successful lawyer and an unsuccessful candidate for the Maine State House of Representatives; his grandson, another Nathan Clifford was also a lawyer and briefly president of the Maine State Senate.
*Clifford, Philip G.,
Nathan Clifford, Democrat, 1803-1881, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1922.
