# Joseph P. Bradley *Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1870–1892) and member of the 1877 Electoral Commission* Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892) was an American lawyer and jurist. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him an associate justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], where he sat from 1870 until his death in 1892.[^1] On the Court, Bradley read federal power under the Commerce Clause broadly and the Fourteenth Amendment narrowly. He dissented in the *Slaughter-House Cases* (1873) and wrote the majority opinion in the *Civil Rights Cases* (1883).[^1] In 1877 he was the last of the fifteen members seated on the Electoral Commission that resolved the disputed 1876 presidential election. The commission's partisan 8–7 vote effectively made Republican Rutherford B. Hayes president.[^1] In 2021 Rutgers University, where Bradley had studied, took his name off a campus building after a university committee reviewed his judicial record.[^1] ## Early life Bradley was born in Berne, New York, to Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley. He was the eldest of their twelve children, attended local schools, and began teaching at age 16.[^1] In 1833 the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced him $250 to prepare for the ministry at Rutgers. He completed his studies there in 1836 and then became principal of the Millstone Academy before turning to law.[^1] At the urging of his Rutgers classmate Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen, Bradley moved to Newark and read law at the Office of the Collector of the Port of Newark. He was admitted to the bar in 1839.[^1] In private practice in New Jersey he concentrated on patent and railroad law. He married Mary Hornblower in Newark in 1844.[^1] Bradley had once worked as an actuary for the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company. In 1851 he published an article in the *Journal of the Institute of Actuaries* on a Roman life table attributed to the jurist Ulpian.[^1] ## Supreme Court ### Appointment Grant nominated Bradley on February 7, 1870, to a seat created by the Judiciary Act of 1869. Grant's earlier nominee for that seat, Ebenezer R. Hoar, had been rejected by the Senate.[^1] The Senate confirmed Bradley on March 21, 1870, by a vote of 46–9. He took the judicial oath two days later, on March 23, 1870, and served until he died on January 22, 1892.[^1] ### Court jurisprudence Bradley held an expansive view of national authority under the Commerce Clause. He gave the Fourteenth Amendment a restrictive reading, a view shared by much of the Court of his time.[^1] He was one of four dissenters in the *Slaughter-House Cases* in 1873. A decade later he wrote for the majority in the *Civil Rights Cases*. Later rulings into the modern era relied on his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment in both cases.[^1] In *Bradwell v. Illinois*, the Court held that the Privileges or Immunities Clause did not protect a right to practice law. Bradley did not join the majority's reasoning, which rested on the *Slaughter-House Cases*. He concurred only in the judgment. His stated ground was that the clause did not protect women in their choice of vocation.[^1] ## 1877 Electoral Commission The commission was formed to settle the contested 1876 race between Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. The House and the Senate each named five members, and the Supreme Court supplied five associate justices.[^1] The decisive seat was expected to go to Justice [[David Davis (Supreme Court justice)]], an independent. Davis was elected to the Senate, withdrew from the commission, and resigned from the Court. Bradley, a long-time Republican, took his place. That change altered the commission's political balance.[^1] Bradley wrote several opinions as a commissioner. Like every other member, he voted with his own party. The final tally was 8–7 on partisan lines, and it effectively gave the presidency to Hayes.[^1] Newspapers called Bradley the "casting vote". Democrats directed their anger at him more than at the other Republican commissioners, and he received death threats.[^1] Accounts that he first leaned toward Tilden and was persuaded overnight to change his vote have been detailed in studies of the dispute but are unproven. Bradley consistently denied that anyone had improperly influenced him.[^1] ## Death Bradley died on January 22, 1892, in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Newark, New Jersey, at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.[^1] The New Jersey Historical Society in Newark holds his personal, legal, and court papers, which are open to researchers.[^1] ## Historical reappraisal In 2021 Rutgers removed Bradley's name from a building it had acquired in 1971. A university committee "recommended Bradley's name be removed after a study of his judicial record". According to the committee, the study showed that Bradley "chose to use his position as a Supreme Court Justice to undo reconstruction, regressing on civil rights and opening a new era of oppression".[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Joseph P. Bradley* (revision 1342206348, retrieved 2026-10-26) — Bradley's birth and early life, appointment (nominated Feb. 7, confirmed 46–9 Mar. 21, oath Mar. 23, 1870), jurisprudence, Electoral Commission service, death (Jan. 22, 1892), papers, and the 2021 Rutgers renaming with the committee's quoted statement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_P._Bradley