Bible Encyclopedias
Samuel Freeman Miller

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Prev Entry
Samuel Foote

Next Entry
Samuel Gobat

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

SAMUEL FREEMAN MILLER (1816-1890), American jurist, was born in Richmond, Kentucky, on the 5th of April 1816, of Pennsylvania-German stock. He was brought up on a farm, was a clerk in a drug-store, graduated from the medical department of Transylvania University in 1838, and practised medicine in Barboursville, Kentucky, until 1847. In that year he was admitted to the bar, and entered politics as a Whig. His antislavery sympathies induced him to settle in Iowa, where in 1850 he freed his slaves and began to practise law in Keokuk, and he soon became a leader of the Republican party in the state. In 1862 he succeeded Justice Peter V. Daniel (1784-1860), as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and served until his death in Washington, D.C., on the 13th of October 1890, when he was senior justice. Miller was a man of great mental force and individuality, and his judgments carried great weight. In 1877 he was a member of the electoral commission, which adopted his motion that Congress could not "go behind the returns" as properly accredited by state officials. He was a prominent member of the Unitarian Church and for three years was president of its national conference. He published a volume of Lectures on the Constitution of the United States (New York, 1891).

1891).

See Wm. A. Maury, in The Juridical Review of Edinburgh (for January 1891), and Chas. M. Gregory, in Yale Law Journal (for April 1908).