The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-07-28
NATHAN CLIFFORD.
Death OF the United States Supreme
Judge at the Age Of Seyenty-eight'

Portland, Me-, July 20. - Justice
Nathan Clifford of the United States
Supreme Court died mt Cornish at
| o'clock this morning.
JUSTICE CLIFFoRD's CAREER.
Justice Nathan Clifford, who has
been for more than decade the senior
member of the United States Supreme
Court, both i'm age and length of SER
vice, was born ut Rumney, N. H., on
the eighteenth of August, 1903. After
a high school education he studied
law and moved to Maine, where he
soon made figure in his profession
and also in politics. He was repeat
edly chosen to thelegislature, and was
! twice elected speaker of the assembly
before he was thirty years old. For
the four years after 1884 he was At
torney General of the State, and for
the next four u representative in Con-
gress. President Polk made him At
| torney General of the United States
in 1916, and he held this position for a
couple of years, after which he was
sent as commissioner from this
country to Mexico and later made
United States minister to that repub-
lie. Returning to Maine, he resumed
the practice of his profession at Port
land, and was so engaged when
President Pierce, on the twelfth of
January, 1857, commissioned him as n
justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States, to fill the vacancy
caused by the resignation of Benja-
min r.. Curtis. The Judge was in his
tifty-fourth year when he took his
seat, but he was the youngest of the
whole bench, except John A. Camp.
bell, of Alabama, who resigned in
1861 to go with his state into secession.
Indeed, Judge Clifford constituted one
of the last links which connected the
present federal judiciary with the pc
I riod of the last Democratic admins
tration. When he was commissioned
Roger b. fancy was Chief Justice,
and was just on the point of rendering
the notorious Dred-Scott decision.
His associates were John Mclean, of
Ohio, and james NJ. Wayne, of
Georgia, who had been appointed by
Andrew Jackson; John Catron,
of Tennessee, whose commission
dated back to 1887, and who, although
born in l77s, kept his place until
death in 1865; Peter V. Daniel, of
Virginia, Samuel Nelson, of New
York, Robert G. Grier, of Pcnnsyl-
vania, and John A. Campbell, of
Alabama. With the exception of Mr..
Campbell, the Chief Justice and all
the associate justices of that day died
years ago. Nor is there to-day in
service II single circuit judge who was
on the bench in 1927, and only three
or four of the over fifty judges of
United States district courts holding
commissions signed, like Clifiord's by
Franklin Pierce.
Judge Clifford was never great
man, but he was always industrious
and faithful. Until attacked by para
lysis last summer he bore up very well
under the assaults of old age, having
Inherited vigorous constitution from
his New Hampshire parentage and
looked carefully after his health. Sub
sequently 70 his paralysis he was
attacked by gangrene and was forced
to undergo an amputation of the foot.
For months he has been beyond hope
of recovery, and latterly he had been
unable even to write his name, and
was almost an imbecile.
When the important decision was
given by the Supreme Court, May l,
1877, affirming the constitutionality of
the legal-tender acts, Judge Clifford
read an opinion dissenting from the
majority, in which he was supported
by the Chief Justice and Judges
Nelson and Field. That dissenting
opinion, which made great talk at the
time held that the act of Congress, so
far as applicable to contracts made be-
fore the passage, is repugnant to the
constitution and void, and also that it
is repugnant to the constitution and
void so far as applicable to contracts
made since its passage. Justice Cliff
ford, could, in fact, always be
depended on to take ground against the
federal idea in our government. One
of his last acts was to concur with
Judge Field in dissenting opinion in
test case sustaining the federal
election laws. Again, Massachu-
setts Judge Of Probate having, in
1871 refusing to pay his income tax,
or paid it under protest, claiming that
the salaries paid by states to their
officers were exempt from federal
taxation, the Supreme Court affirmed
that view; and Justice Clifford, in
pronouncing the decision said /:
"Counties and other municipal
corporations were created by the
states; but the states were not created
by the United States, as the states
existed as independent sovereignties
even before the Union was formed"
An interesting story is told illus
trating the strict integrity and high
sense of duty displayed on the most
trying occasions by Justice Clifford
The Justice was president of the