Robert Cooper Grier

Robert Cooper Grier
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office August 10, 1846 – January 31, 1870[1]
Nominated by	James K. Polk
Preceded by	Henry Baldwin
Succeeded by	William Strong
Personal details
Born	(1794-03-05)March 5, 1794 Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	September 25, 1870(1870-09-25) (aged 76) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Other political affiliations	Jacksonian
Spouse	Isabelle Rose ​ (m. 1829)​
Children	6
Education	Dickinson College (BA)

Robert Cooper Grier (March 5, 1794 – September 25, 1870) was an American jurist who served on the Supreme Court of the United States.

A Jacksonian Democrat from Pennsylvania who served from 1846 to 1870, Grier weighed in on some of the most important cases of the 19th century. As one of two Northern members of the majority in the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) decision, Grier concurred that African Americans were not and were never meant to be citizens of the United States and that the property rights of slaveholders were clearly protected in the U.S. Constitution, after being pressured by President-elect James Buchanan to join the Southern majority in an attempt to prevent the appearance that the decision was made along sectional lines.^[2]

In 1863, Grier wrote the majority opinion in the Prize Cases, upholding Abraham Lincoln's presidential power to institute Union blockades of Confederate ports, which granted the Union Army a strategic advantage in the American Civil War.