Benjamin Robbins Curtis

Benjamin Robbins Curtis stood apart on the antebellum Supreme Court. A Harvard-trained lawyer from Massachusetts, he was the first justice to hold a formal law degree, bringing a new rigor to the bench. His tenure, though short, was defined by a single, seismic act: his dissent in Dred Scott v. Sandford. In 1857, as the court's majority ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in territories, Curtis penned a meticulous, scathing rebuttal. He argued from historical precedent that free Black men had been citizens at the nation's founding and assailed the decision as a political overreach. The controversy contributed to his resignation later that year. He returned to a lucrative private practice, where he notably defended President Andrew Johnson during his impeachment trial, cementing his legacy as a man of principle who placed law above the political tempests of his age.