Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Noah Haynes SWAYNE
Noah Swayne was born in Virginia on December 7, 1804. He read law as a teenager, and was admitted to practice in Virginia at age 19. Because he was opposed to slavery, Swayne moved to Ohio to practice law. Between 1830-41, Swayne was a part-time United States Attorney (prosecuting federal cases in Ohio). His anti-slavery views may have led to his acting as counsel in several fugitive slave cases in the 1850s. Swayne joined the newly formed Republican Party in 1856 (founded by, among others, future Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Waite). After the death of John McLean, one of the two dissenters in Dred Scott, less than a week before the beginning of the Civil War, Swayne campaigned for the nomination to replace his friend. Lincoln, desperately trying to hold together the Union, did not nominate Swayne to replace McLean until January 1862, eight months after McLean's death. Swayne supported Lincoln's war efforts, and campaigned to be named Chief Justice after the deaths of Roger Taney in 1864 and Salmon Chase in 1873. Swayne joined the dissents of Justices Stephen Field and Joseph Bradley in the Slaughterhouse Cases, but four years later joined the majority in Munn v. Illinois, in which Field and Bradley also dissented.
In 1881, President Rutherford B. Hayes, an Ohioan like Swayne, asked Swayne to step down from the Court. He did so only because Hayes promised to appoint Swayne's friend Stanley Matthews in Swayne's seat.
Swayne died on June 8, 1884, at age 79.
SWAYNE, Noah Haynes, jurist, born in Culpeper county, Virginia, 7 December, 1804; died in New York city, 8 June, 1884. His ancestor, Francis Swayne, came to this country with William Penn, and the farm on which he settled near Philadelphia is still in possession of his descendants. Noah's father, Joshua, removed to Virginia, and the son, after receiving a good education in Waterford, Virginia, studied law in Warrenton, was admitted to the bar in 1823, removed to Ohio, and in 1825 opened an office in Coshocton. In 1826-'9 he was prosecuting attorney of the county, and he then entered the Ohio legislature, to which he was elected as a Jefferson Democrat. He was appointed United States district attorney for Ohio in 1831, removed to Columbus, and served until 1841. In 1833 he declined the of-rice of presiding judge of the common pleas. Subsequently he practised law until he was appointed, with Alfred Kelly and Gustavus Swan, a fund commissioner, to restore the credit of the state. He also served on thecommission that was sent by the governor to Washington to effect a settlement of the boundary line between Ohio and Michigan, and in 1840 was a member of the committee to inquire into the condition of the blind. The trial of William Rossane and others in the United States circuit court at Columbus in 1853 for burning the steamboat "Martha Washington," to obtain the insurance, was one of his most celebrated cases. He also appeared as counsel in fugitive-slave cases, and, owing to his anti-slavery opinions, joined the Republican party on its formation, liberating at an early date the slaves that he received through his marriage in 1832. In 1862 he was appointed by President Lincoln a justice of the supreme court of the United States, and he served until 1881, when he resigned on account of advanced age. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Dartmouth and Marietta in 1863, and by Yale in 1865.His son, Wager, lawyer, born in Columbus, Ohio, 10 November, 1834, was graduated at Yale in 1856, and at the Cincinnati law-school in 1859. On his admission to the bar he practised in Columbus. He was appointed major of the 43d Ohio volunteers on 31 August, 1861, became lieutenant-colonel on 14 December, 1861, colonel on 18 October, 1862, served in all the marches and battles of the Atlanta campaign, lost a leg at Salkahatchie, South Carolina, and was brevetted brigadier-general, United States volunteers, on 5 February, 1865, becoming full brigadier-general on 8 March, 1865, and major-general on 20 June, 1865. He was made colonel of the 45th regular infantry on 28 July, 1866, and on 2 March, 1867, was brevetted brigadier-general, United States army, for gallant and meritorious services in the action of Rivers Bridges, South Carolina, and major-general for services during the war. He was mustered out of the volunteer service on 1 September, 1867 General Swayne was a commissioner of the freedmen's bureau in Alabama, where he commanded the United States forces, and was also intrusted with the administration of the reconstruction acts of congress, organizing an extensive system of common schools for colored children, who had none, and establishing at Montgomery, Selma, and Mobile important high-schools, which still remain, and also Talladega college. He retired on 1 July, 1870, and practised law in Toledo, Ohio, but in 1880 he removed to New York city, where he is counsel for railroad and telegraph corporations.
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