This is a list of U.S. Supreme Court Justices who owned slaves at any point in their lives. Slavery was legal in parts of the United States from the American Revolutionary War through the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in December, 1865, shortly after the conclusion of the American Civil War.
Contents
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| No. | Justice | Chief or Associate | Approximate number of slaves held | While on federal bench? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Jay | Chief | 17 [1] | Yes (1789–1795) | Owned five slaves as late as 1800; advocate for gradual emancipation and first president of the New York Manumission Society. |
| 2 | John Rutledge | Associate & Chief | 60+ [2] | Yes (1790–1791, 1795) | Lifelong slave owner. Argued for slavery before the Constitutional Convention. Rescued by enslaved people after a suicide attempt. Owned one slave on his death in 1800. Related by marriage to the abolitionist Grimké sisters. |
| 4 | James Wilson | Associate | 1 [3] | Yes (1789–1798) | One of the proposers of the Three-fifths Compromise. Helped to write but opposed including the Fugitive Slave Clause. [4] While purporting to be an opponent of slavery, owned one household slave, freed in 1794. |
| 6 | James Iredell | Associate | 14+ [5] | Yes (1790–1799) | Was openly against the practice of slavery, especially the slave trade, while continuing to enslave people. Freed some during his lifetime. |
| 7 | Thomas Johnson | Associate | 50+ [6] [7] | Yes (1791–1793) | Had enslaved people working at his and his brothers' factory, Catoctin Furnace. [8] Runaway slave ads and records of sale survive. [9] [10] |
| 9 | Samuel Chase | Associate | 15 [11] | Yes (1796–1811) | Despite owning slaves, was opposed to slavery on a religious basis. [12] [13] |
| 11 | Bushrod Washington | Associate | 83 [14] | Yes (1798–1829) | Heir to Mount Vernon and the enslaved people who worked and lived on the property. [15] Helped found the American Colonization Society. |
| 12 | Alfred Moore | Associate | 48 [16] | Yes (1800–1804) | Moore's plantation, Buchoi, was raided by British forces during the Revolutionary War, who seized livestock and freed enslaved people. [17] |
| 13 | John Marshall | Chief | 150+ [18] | Yes (1801–1835) | Lifelong slave owner; [18] provided venture capital to slave speculators. [19] : 11–12 |
| 14 | William Johnson | Associate | unknown | Yes (1804–1834) | Critical voice in the case of Denmark Vesey's slave rebellion. "Opposed abolition while also opposing inhumane treatment of Africans." [20] |
| 16 | Thomas Todd | Associate | 26 [21] | Yes (1807–1826) | [22] |
| 17 | Gabriel Duvall | Associate | ~200 [23] | Yes (1811–1835) | Enslaved people built his house, Marietta (Glenn Dale, Maryland). As an attorney prior to serving on the Court, represented enslaved people suing for their freedom. |
| 20 | Robert Trimble | Associate | 23 [24] | unknown (1826–1828) | Prior to joining the Court, involved in the case of the slave ship Antelope . [25] |
| 21 | John McLean | Associate | 3+ | Yes (1829–1861) | Vocal opponent of slavery prior to joining and while sitting on the Court. Dissented in slave cases of Prigg v. Pennsylvania and Dred Scott v. Sandford . Known to have purchased enslaved people and freed them subsequently. [26] [27] |
| 23 | James M. Wayne | Associate | 100+ [28] | unknown (1835–1867) | Concurrence in Dred Scott decision. Freed enslaved woman he had three children with. [29] |
| 24 | Roger B. Taney | Chief | 8+ [30] | No (1836–1864) | Manumitted "most (but not all)" of his slaves as young man. [31] Some manumissions delayed until the 1840s. [32] "Deeply committed to slavery". [33] Wrote the Dred Scott decision. |
| 25 | Philip P. Barbour | Associate | 54 [34] | Yes (1836–1841) | While in Congress, advocated for admission of Missouri as a slave state during the Missouri Compromise and upholded Missouri's ban on the entry of free Black Americans (legally deemed non-citizens). [35] "One of the largest slave owners in Orange County" [36] |
| 26 | John Catron | Associate | 10 [37] | Yes (1837–1865) | Lifelong slave owner; father of an extramarital child by an enslaved woman named Sally. [38] Concurrence in Dred Scott decision. |
| 27 | John McKinley | Associate | 12 [39] | Yes (1838–1852) | |
| 28 | Peter V. Daniel | Associate | 8+ [40] | Yes (1842–1860) | Concurrence in Dred Scott decision. "The most pro-southern and proslavery of all the justices." [41] |
| 33 | John A. Campbell | Associate | 14 | No (1853–1861) | Freed his slaves before joining the Court. [42] Concurrence in Dred Scott decision. Quit the court at outbreak of Civil War and was later appointed Confederate Assistant Secretary of War; he "bitterly opposed" Reconstruction and organized multiple lawsuits in opposition. [43] |
| 36 | Samuel Freeman Miller | Associate | unknown | No (1862–1890) | Freed his slaves before he left Kentucky for Iowa in 1850. [44] |
| 44 | John Marshall Harlan | Associate | unknown | No (1877–1911) | Had a mixed-race half-brother, Robert James Harlan. Owned "a few household slaves", and did not free his slaves until the abolishment of slavery. "The Great Dissenter," he ultimately became one of the court's staunchest defenders of equal rights. [45] [46] |
| 49 | Lucius Q. C. Lamar | Associate | 31 [47] | No (1888–1893) | Staunch proslavery activist and speaker. |