Swayne, Noah H.

▪ United States jurist

in full  Noah Haynes Swayne  

born Dec. 7, 1804, Frederick county, Va., U.S.

died June 8, 1884, New York, N.Y.

      associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1862–81).

      Swayne chose the law after briefly studying medicine and was admitted to the bar in 1823. He immediately moved from Virginia to Ohio because of his antislavery views and set up a successful practice at Coshocton. He was appointed county prosecuting attorney in 1826 and was elected to the legislature as a Jacksonian Democrat in 1829. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson appointed him U.S. attorney for the Ohio district. He moved to Columbus, where he practiced for the next 31 years.

      Swayne was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862 at the urging of his predecessor John McLean and of the Ohio congressional delegation. He was a diligent worker and an ardent supporter of expanded federal powers. His most notable opinions were in Gelpcke v. City of Dubuque, in which the court declared that general judicial principles take precedence over the decisions of local tribunals in federal judicial review, and Springer v. United States (1881), which upheld the constitutionality of a federal income tax imposed during the Civil War.

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