Robert Cooper Grier (March 5, 1794 – September 25, 1870) was an American judge who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1846 to 1870.
He was a member of the Taney Court and along with Samuel Nelson, was one of two "doughfaces", or Northern Democrats, on the court that were anti-abolitionists and voted in support of slavery. He concurred with the majority in the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision that the portion of the Missouri Compromise that prohibited slavery north and west of the federal territory was unconstitutional and that Congress had no authority to regulate slavery in the territories. Grier was pressured by President-elect James Buchanan to join the Southern majority in an attempt to prevent the appearance that the decision was made along sectional lines.
Despite his pro-slavery votes, he was opposed to secession of the Confederate States of America. In 1863, Grier wrote the majority opinion in the Prize Cases, that confirmed Abraham Lincoln's presidential power to institute Union blockades of Confederate ports during the American Civil War.
Grier was born March 5, 1794, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, the oldest of eleven children to Elizabeth Cooper Grier and Isaac Grier. Both of his parents were members of the Presbyterian clergy. His father tutored him in a classical education and he excelled in Latin and Greek.
In 1806, the family moved to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where his father managed three churches and a private school. Grier entered Dickinson College in 1811 as a junior and graduated in 1812. He remained there as an instructor until taking a position at a school run by his father. He studied law under his father until his death in 1815. He worked at his father's school as an administrator and teacher and continued his law education under Charles Hall. He was admitted to the bar in 1817.
He practiced law for 15 years, first in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and then Danville, Pennsylvania. He supported his mother and paid for the education of his ten siblings. He was a Jacksonian Democrat and supported Andrew Jackson in his presidential campaign.
A new district court for Allegheny County was opened and there was political maneuvering for appointees. Through a series of backroom deals, Grier was offered the judgeship with the expectation that he would decline. However he accepted the role and moved to Pittsburgh. He served in that role for 13 years and developed an excellent reputation.
In 1848, Grier was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.
Supreme Court Justice Henry Baldwin died in April 1844, during the presidency of John Tyler. Tyler attempted to fill the vacancy twice, nominating first Edward King and then John M. Read – both were rejected by the United States Senate. As a result, the seat was still vacant when James K. Polk became president in March 1845.
Polk's first nominee for the seat, George Washington Woodward, was also rejected. Polk approached James Buchannan for consideration to be nominated, but he declined. Four congressmen from the slave state of Maryland recommended to Polk that he select Grier. They wrote that he was one who "acknowledges the right of the master to his slave and will enforce it irrespective of the clogs from time to time attempted to be thrown around by state legislation."
On August 3, 1846, Polk nominated Grier and the Senate unanimously confirmed him the following day. He was sworn into office on August 10, 1846. There had been an 841 day-long gap between the death of Henry Baldwin (April 21, 1844) and Robert Grier's swearing-in, which is the longest vacancy in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Prior to Grier joining the Taney Court, it had been granting increasing power to the states to regulate interstate commerce. Grier was solidly in the middle of the opposing factions of this argument. He sided with the majority in 1849 on the Passenger Cases, that determined a state tax on immigrants was a violation of the commerce power of Congress, and in 1852 on Cooley v. Board of Wardens, which attempted to balance congressional power and state police powers.
In Cook v. Moffat (1847), William G. Cook of Maryland filed bankruptcy in his home state. He believed that, because he had made this decision under Maryland's insolvency laws, he escaped from all debts, including those that he owed to citizens and companies in other states. John L. Moffat and Joseph Curtis, the respondents in this case, thought otherwise. As citizens of New York, Moffat and Curtis argued that Maryland's bankruptcy laws did not free Cook from his obligations in other states. In his first majority opinion, Grier ruled in favor of Moffat and Curtis, finding that a State shall not "inflict her bankrupt laws on contracts and persons not within her limits." Perhaps more important than what Grier ruled in the case was how he ruled. Citing multiple opinions, Grier remarked that holding in favor of Cook would "overrule every case heretofore decided on this most difficult and intricate subject." To "depart from the safe maxim of stare decisis," said Grier, would be a grave mistake. Grier's respect for the Court's previous rulings constitutes an essential component of his first major opinion.
Grier authored another decisive majority opinion on the question of contracts in Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company v. Louisa Railroad Company (1852). This case revolved around an 1834 charter issued by Virginia to the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad Company ("RFP"). The charter granted the RFP sole rights to transport passengers between Richmond and Fredericksburg for a period of thirty years, thus establishing a contract between the company and the state. Nonetheless, Virginia approved a charter to establish the Louisa Railroad Company ("LRC") in 1848. The LRC, which proposed to carry only freight, followed a route similar to that of the RFP. Feeling that its contract had been violated, the RFP filed suit. In a ruling that pays homage to Taney's Charles River Bridge (1837) opinion, Grier concentrated on strict construction of the charter: "Where do we find that the legislature have contracted to part with the power of constructing other railroads," Grier asked, "even between Richmond and Fredericksburg, for carrying coal or other freight?" Plainly answering himself, Grier explained that "such a contract cannot be elicited from the letter or spirit of this act," thus ruling in favor of the LRC. His decision clearly echoed Taney's call for economic progress and promotion of the public good in the Charles River Bridge decision that to deny the Louisa Railroad's rights would be a disservice to the people and businesses of Virginia.
Grier was assigned to handle cases out of the Third Circuit which represented his home state of Pennsylvania. Since it bordered the slave state of Maryland, Grier saw several fugitive slave cases. Along with Samuel Nelson, Grier was one of two Northern Democrats on the Taney Court derogatively called "doughfaces". Because the National Democratic party was controlled by Southern Democrats, Nelson and Grier were solid votes to support slavery.
In United States v. Hanway (1851), a Third Circuit Court case, Grier weighted in on the case that arose from the Christiana Riot. Abolitionists were charged with treason after the murder of Edward Gorsuch, a slave owner from Maryland, who lead a raid on a home in Pennsylvania to capture an escaped slave. Despite Grier's support of slavery, he ruled that the federal charges had gone too far in charging the abolitionists with treason. In his instructions to the jury, Grier described the abolitions as "infuriated fanatics and unprincipled demagogues" that were known to "promulgate doctrines subversive of all morality and all government". His view of abolitionists angered those in his home state and all through the United States.
The justice also carried this philosophy toward abolitionists outside the courtroom. When a Presbyterian preacher announced an upcoming abolitionist meeting during Sunday morning service, Grier stood to protest the message, declaring that all good Christians must reject the abolitionist cause. Grier reaffirmed these beliefs in his majority opinion in Moore v. Illinois (1852), upholding an Illinois law that punished any citizen who hid runaway slaves.