Shiras, George, Jr.

▪ United States jurist

born Jan. 26, 1832, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.

died Aug. 2, 1924, Pittsburgh

      associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1892–1903).

      Shiras was admitted to the bar in 1855, and in 25 years of practice he built up a wide reputation in corporation law. In 1892 he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Pres. Benjamin Harrison. An able justice, he gave the opinion of the court on a number of cases involving corporation and commercial law, including Brass v. North Dakota (1894), which upheld the regulatory power of states over grain elevators. He is chiefly remembered for an incident involving the 1895 income tax case Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. On the first hearing the court, with one member ill, was evenly divided on aspects of the tax; on rehearing, one of the initial supporters of the tax changed his vote, and the tax was ruled unconstitutional. Widespread belief identified Shiras as the changed vote, and he became temporarily the object of an outpouring of sentiment from both supporters and opponents of the measure. Neither he nor his colleagues ever revealed who had changed his vote, although in 1928 Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes suggested that it had been another justice.

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