Benjamin Robbins Curtis

Benjamin Robbins Curtis (November 4, 1809 – September 15, 1874) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an <a href="/facts/Associate_justice_of_the_United_States_Supreme_Court/K88lDBQu">associate justice of the United States Supreme Court</a> from 1851 to 1857. Curtis was the only <a href="/facts/Whig_Party_(United_States)/4tQTAzq2">Whig</a> justice of the Supreme Court, and he was the first Supreme Court justice to have a formal <a href="/facts/Law_degree/dWtGK4Ip">law degree</a>. He is often remembered as one of the two dissenters in the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision <a href="/facts/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford/xYAySdMv">Dred Scott v. Sandford</a>.
Curtis resigned from the Supreme Court in 1857 to return to private legal practice in <a href="/facts/Boston/exjfn6xf">Boston, Massachusetts</a>. In 1868, Curtis was President <a href="/facts/Andrew_Johnson/Su3vFeRj">Andrew Johnson</a>'s defense lawyer during <a href="/facts/Impeachment_trial_of_Andrew_Johnson/k0zvfPnP">Johnson's impeachment trial</a>.

Benjamin Robbins Curtis open-in-new

Benjamin Robbins Curtis