 Nathan
Clifford was born in New Hampshire on August 18, 1803. Clifford read law
in New Hampshire and was admitted to the bar in 1827. After moving to
Maine, Clifford was elected to the Maine legislature, and after several
terms in office, was elected to the House of Representatives. In the
mid-1840s, President James K. Polk nominated Clifford as Attorney
General of the United States. In 1857, Clifford was nominated to the
Supreme Court by President James Buchanan to replace
Benjamin Curtis of Massachusetts, who had resigned in disgust over
the Court's decision in
Dred
Scott v. Sandford. Clifford was narrowly confirmed (26-23) by a
Senate divided along sectional lines and on the issue of slavery.
Clifford remained on the Court until his death on July 25, 1881.
Clifford was the chairman of the electoral commission charged with
settling the presidential election of 1876. The Republican presidential
candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, had received fewer popular votes than
the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden was one electoral
vote from a majority, but the reconstruction states of Florida, South
Carolina and Louisiana all sent in two sets of electoral votes. In
Florida, for example, the early count had Tilden ahead by a couple of
hundred votes, and the Republican party was soon on its way to minority
status. However, in late 1876 it continued to control the Florida
canvassing board and most other state offices. On November 27, 1876, the
board, leaving out two Democratic precincts in Baker County, gave Hayes
a 43 vote margin. By December 6, the official vote gave Hayes a 924 vote
margin (23,843-22,919). Democrats argued that the board should have just
counted, not decided which ballots to accept, and that counting would
have given Tilden a 1,700 margin. The Florida Supreme Court ordered the
canvassing board to meet on December 27, but it did not to do so.
Consequently, the Florida Attorney General, a Democrat, appeared alone
and certified the Democratic electors. The board met shortly thereafter,
and certified the Republican electors. The Florida Supreme Court
rejected the second certification on January 1, 1877. The next day, the
Democratic governor and the Democratic legislature passed legislation
validating a Democratic victory. However, the Florida Supreme Court
decided not to rule on a Democrat challenge to the Republican
certificate until June, which left the matter to the Joint Congressional
Committee. Two sets of returns were sent to the House of Representatives
from those states, and the Democratic majority in the House (169-109) at
first refused to go into joint session with the Republican Senate
(45-29, and two others) to conduct the count. The problem for the
Democrats was that the 12th Amendment appeared to permit the
Vice President (the President of the Senate), to count the electoral
votes. That was H. Wilson, Grant’s second Vice President. Congress then
decided to appoint, through the adoption of an act, an Electoral
Commission to resolve the disputed electoral votes. The Commission
consisted of 10 Congressmen, evenly divided between the parties (3 House
Democrats and 2 Senate Democrats), and five Supreme Court justices. Four
of the justices were to pick the fifth justice. The four justices were
two Democrats, Clifford and
Stephen
Field (of California), and two Republicans,
Samuel
Miller (of Iowa) and
William Strong (of Pennsylvania). It was understood by the Democrats
that the fifth justice to be picked would be Justice
David
Davis of Illinois, professedly independent, but whose formerly
Republican leanings had disappeared in his desire to become President.
Some Republicans believed Davis would accept a Democratic nomination to
be President, and so they nominated him on January 17, 1877, to run
against the Democratic candidate for Senator in Illinois. The next week,
Tilden’s nephew, William Pelton, convinced some Democrats in the
Illinois legislature to vote for Davis, making him the Senator from
Illinois. As a result, Davis refused to become the fifteenth member of
the Electoral Commission. The justices then picked
Joseph Bradley, an "independent" Republican from New Jersey. Bradley
decided that the Commission (and the Congress) had no authority to look
behind the electoral ballots sent in by the states, and therefore the
Republican ballots sent in by the still-Reconstructed states of South
Carolina, Louisiana and Florida were the official votes for those
states.
Clifford suffered a stroke in 1880, but
remained on the Court until his death the next year. |
