Home > Samuel Freeman Miller

Born in Richmond, Kentucky, he was the son of a farmer. He received a medical degree in 1838 from Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky. While practicing medicine for a decade, he studied the law on his own and was admitted to the bar in 1847. He was for emancipation and supported the Whigs in Kentucky before moving to Iowa, a state more amenable to his views on slavery. Active in Hawkeye politics, he supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election. Lincoln appointed Miller to the Court in 1862.

His opinions strongly favored Lincoln's positions, upholding his suspension of habeas corpusIn the common law legal system, habeas corpus Latin for "you must have the body" or more liberally "produce the body", is a prerogative writ requiring the government to produce in court a person in its custody and justify his or her confinement. Known as and trials by military commission. After the war, his narrow reading the Fourteenth AmendmentAmendment XIV (the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution is one of the post- Civil War amendments and includes the due process and equal protection clauses (Section 1). It was adopted on July 28, 1868. Definition of citizen The first sect--he wrote the opinion in the Slaughterhouse CasesThe Slaughter-House Cases 83 U. 36 ( 1872) represented a block appeal to the United States Supreme Court testing the relatively new Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. It is viewed as a pivotal case in early civil rights law since the Supreme Court--limited the effectiveness of the amendment. He later ruled ( United States v. CruikshankUnited States v. Cruikshank 92 U. 542 ( 1875) was an important United States Supreme Court decision in United States constitutional law, one of the earliest to deal with the application of the Bill of Rights to state governments following the adoption of, Civil Rights CasesThe Civil Rights Cases 109 U. 3 ( 1883) were a series of important United States Supreme Court cases. The decision was a ruling on five different cases from different courts on different reasoning. Read properly, the docket was: United States v. Stanley :) that the amendment did not give the United States government the power to stop private, as opposed to state-sponsored, discrimination against blacks. Miller supported broad federal power under the commerce clause ( Wabash v. Illinois ) that trumped state regulations.

After the 1876Events January events January 31 The United States orders all Native Americans to move into reservations. February events February 2 The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs of Major League Baseball is formed. February 14 Alexander Graham Bell a presidential electionSummary In perhaps the most disputed presidential election in American history, Samuel Tilden handily defeated Ohio's Rutherford Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165. However, 20 electoral votes were in dispute due to four between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, he served on the electoral commission that awarded the disputed electoral votes to Hayes. Ulysses Grant considered Miller for the chief justice post, but instead chose Morrison Waite. In the 1880's, his name was floated as a Republican candidate for president.

He died while still a member of the court, in Washington, D.C. and is buried in the Oakland Cemetery, Kelkuka, Iowa .