Samuel Nelson

Samuel Nelson ( born November 10, 1792 in Hebron, Washington County, New York, † September 13, 1873 ) was an American judge, including from 1845 to 1872 at the Supreme Court of the United States.

Life

Nelson studied at Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating in 1813, the studies there from. He later worked as an owner of a successful, specialized mainly in real estate and business law firm. The case knotted political contacts meant that he was the youngest delegate to the Constituent Assembly of the State of New York in 1821. In 1823 he was elected to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth District. In 1831 he was then judge on the New York State Supreme Court, in 1841 as Chief Justice. After U.S. President John Tyler had failed with numerous other candidates to fill a seat in the United States Supreme Court in 1845, he appointed Nelson as Judge at the Supreme Court.

Nelson wrote, among other things, a dissenting opinion to the judgment in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which originally represented, before the influence by politicians, the majority opinion. In its reasoning, he avoided the politically sensitive treatment of the question of slavery.