Benjamin Robbins Curtis

Benjamin Robbins Curtis
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office October 10, 1851 – September 30, 1857
Nominated by	Millard Fillmore
Preceded by	Levi Woodbury
Succeeded by	Nathan Clifford
Personal details
Born	(1809-11-04)November 4, 1809 Watertown, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	September 15, 1874(1874-09-15) (aged 64) Newport, Rhode Island, U.S.
Political party	Whig (before 1854) Republican (1854–1862) Democratic (1863–1874)[1]
Spouses	Eliza Woodward ​ ​ (m. 1833; died 1844)​ Anna Scolley ​ ​ (m. 1846; died 1860)​ Maria Allen ​ (m. 1861)​
Children	12
Education	Harvard University (BA, LLB)

Benjamin Robbins Curtis (November 4, 1809 – September 15, 1874) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1851 to 1857. Curtis was the first and only Whig justice of the Supreme Court, and he was the first Supreme Court justice to have a formal law degree. He is often remembered as one of the two dissenters in the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision Dred Scott v. Sandford.^[2]

Curtis resigned from the Supreme Court in 1857 to return to private legal practice in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1868, Curtis was President Andrew Johnson's defense lawyer during Johnson's impeachment trial.