United States v. Cruikshank

About the Author

Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite composed the Court’s opinion in United States v. Cruikshank. At first he had hoped to entrust Associate Justice Nathan Clifford with drafting the Court’s opinion, but Clifford’s draft, presented to the justices in November 1875, fell short of offering a comprehensive overview of the issues at stake and based the Court’s ruling on narrow grounds.

The son of a judge, Waite, born on November 19, 1816, was a native of Connecticut and an 1837 graduate of Yale who moved to Ohio after graduation, eventually settling in Toledo. Originally a Whig in politics, he became a Republican, but his sole brush with political office came when he served a term in the Ohio Senate. In 1871 he served on the legal team that presented the United States’ case at a Geneva tribunal convened to settle U.S. claims of damages caused by the CSS Alabama, built by Great Britain to serve the Confederacy. Three years later, in the wake of several frustrated attempts to nominate a new chief justice of the United States, President Grant settled upon Waite, who won confirmation despite critical commentary that he would not be up to the task. Along with United States v. Reese, United States v. Cruikshank provided Waite with his first substantial test as chief justice. After Cruikshank, Waite went on to serve twelve more years as chief justice. When he died on March 23, 1888, he left behind a solid but unspectacular record. If his performance surprised those critics who had criticized Grant for nominating a nonentity, it nevertheless fell short of the greatness achieved by other chief justices.