Benjamin Robbins Curtis
Benjamin Robbins Curtis was born on November 4, 1809. See ranking, bio blurb, and everyone else born that day.
About Benjamin Robbins Curtis
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 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. 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.