John McLean

McLean's career spanned the early republic, the Jacksonian era, the rise of the Republican Party, and the beginning of the Civil War. Before joining the Supreme Court he had served in Congress and as Postmaster General under two presidents. On the Court he frequently occupied an independent position and eventually became one of the strongest judicial opponents of the constitutional arguments supporting slavery.

McLean was born on March 11, 1785, in New Jersey. His family moved westward to Ohio when he was young, and he grew up during the rapid development of the Northwest Territory. He studied law and established a practice in Lebanon, Ohio.

McLean entered politics as a Democratic-Republican and was elected to Congress in 1812. He later became a judge of the Ohio Supreme Court. President James Monroe appointed him Postmaster General in 1823, and McLean continued in that office under President John Quincy Adams. Andrew Jackson later nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1829.

McLean served during the entire Taney Court and participated in many of the great constitutional controversies preceding the Civil War. In Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge (1837), he joined the Court's rejection of a broad implied monopoly. In Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), he joined the Court's recognition of federal authority over fugitive slaves while expressing opposition to aspects of the slavery regime. His most famous judicial work came in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), where he dissented from Chief Justice Taney's opinion and argued that free Black Americans could be citizens of the United States and that Congress possessed authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.

McLean remained on the Court until his death and was repeatedly discussed as a potential presidential candidate. He was a prominent anti-slavery Whig and later Republican, although he never secured his party's presidential nomination. He died in Cincinnati on April 4, 1861, only weeks before the outbreak of the Civil War.

McLean's greatest legacy lies in his dissent in Dred Scott. His opinion offered a direct constitutional rejection of the proposition that Black Americans could categorically be excluded from American citizenship. Although the Court's majority rejected his position, his dissent became part of the constitutional arguments that ultimately informed the Fourteenth Amendment.

Constitutional approach: Originalist, but with an anti-slavery constitutional interpretation. McLean should not be labeled a living constitutionalist. His Dred Scott dissent rested heavily on historical evidence concerning citizenship at the founding and on the constitutional text rather than on an evolving-constitution theory.

Key decisions

Separate opinions: McLean became one of the Court's most prominent dissenters, culminating in his powerful dissent in Dred Scott.