Nelson, Samuel

Life Span
to
Full name
Samuel Nelson
Place of Birth
Burial Place
Birth Date Certainty
Exact
Death Date Certainty
Exact
Gender
Male
Race
White
Origins
Free State
No. of Spouses
2
No. of Children
4
Family
John Rogers Nelson (father), Jean McArthur (mother), Pamela Woods (first wife, 1819), Catherine Ann Russell (second wife, 1825)
Education
Other
Other Education
Middlebury College, VT
Occupation
Attorney or Judge
Relation to Slavery
White non-slaveholder
Government
Supreme Court
State supreme court
State judge

Samuel Nelson (American National Biography)

Scholarship
Nelson's career on the bench was marked by an interest in technical cases rather than in the better-known constitutional issues. Specializing in admiralty and maritime law, patent law, equity, international law, and the conflict of laws, he gained a reputation as a diligent, reliable, fair-minded, and apolitical judge.

Nelson's opinion in the Dred Scott case illustrates his lack of political bias. The slave Dred Scott sued for freedom after his master took him into a territory Congress declared "free" in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The first question to be settled was whether Scott was a U.S. citizen. Precedent dictated that in these cases citizenship status was determined by the law of the state in which the suit was brought, and under Missouri law Scott remained a slave and therefore was not a citizen. Nelson therefore voted that the Court should not hear the case. Other, more politically motivated members of the court voted to hear the case. In the final court decision, Nelson agreed with the majority that Scott must remain a slave, but he submitted an independent opinion.
Elizabeth Zoe Vicary, "Nelson, Samuel," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/11/11-00625.html.
How to Cite This Page: "Nelson, Samuel," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6307.