FULLER, MELVILLE WESTON
Melville Weston Fuller served as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1888 to 1910.
Fuller’s term as chief justice was marked by
many decisions that protected big business from
federal laws that sought to regulate interstate
commerce. In addition, the Fuller Court’s
restrictive reading of the FOURTEENTH AMEND-
MENT led it to render the infamous separate but
equal racial SEGREGATION decision in PLESSY V.
FERGUSON, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S. Ct. 1138, 41 L. Ed.
256 (1896).
Fuller was born February 11, 1833, in
Augusta,Maine. He grew up in the household of
his maternal grandfather, the chief justice of the
Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Following his
graduation from Bowdoin College in 1853, he
apprenticed in his uncles’ law offices and briefly
attended Harvard Law School. Even though he
did not receive a law degree, he was the first chief
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court to serve with
significant academic legal preparation. Fuller
moved to Chicago in 1856 and established a law
practice. An active member of the DEMOCRATIC
PARTY, he served in the Illinois Constitutional
Convention of 1861 and for one term (1862–64)
in the state house of representatives. He
attended as a delegate every national Democra-
tic convention between 1864 and 1880.
Fuller withdrew from day-to-day politics
after he married Mary Ellen Coolbaugh, the
daughter of a prominent Chicago banker, in
1866. His law practice thrived because of this
family connection, and with his new wealth, he
invested in real estate. Fuller specialized in
appellate practice, appearing before the U.S.
Supreme Court many times.
Fuller’s appointment to the Court in 1888
was driven by presidential politics and his long
service to the Democratic Party. President
GROVER CLEVELAND, a Democrat who believed
that it would be essential to win the state of Illi-
nois as part of his re-election bid, nominated
Fuller as chief justice to replace MORRISON R.
WAITE, who had died in March 1888. Fuller and
Cleveland were friends and political colleagues.
At the time, the press described Fuller as “the
most obscure man ever appointed Chief Justice”
(Baker 1991, 360). Others were more unkind,
dubbing him “the fifth best lawyer from the City
of Chicago” (review of The Chief Justiceship of
Melville W. Fuller 1996, 109).
Fuller’s 22-year term as chief justice was
distinguished by his skillful handling of often
contentious Court conferences. Justice OLIVER
WENDELL HOLMES, JR. thought highly of
Fuller’s ability to maintain collegiality. At the
end of his own legal career, Holmes ranked
Fuller as the best chief justice under whom he
had served. Fuller was an energetic jurist who
also served on the Permanent Court of Arbitra-
tion, at The Hague, Netherlands. That interna-
tional organization, comprising jurists from
various countries, ruled on world disputes. In
1899, Fuller arbitrated a boundary dispute
between Venezuela and British Guyana.
The U.S. economy grew rapidly while Fuller
served as chief justice. This expansion led to the
concentration of economic power in certain
industries by a small number of individuals and
corporations. The federal government’s efforts
to regulate interstate commerce and to curtail
the power of monopolies and trusts met fierce
opposition from both the affected businesses
and those who believed in a restricted role for
the national government. Opponents of
national power argued for continued adherence
to the doctrine of FEDERALISM. That doctrine
has many facets, including a fundamental
assumption that the national government must
not intrude on the power of the states to manage
their affairs.
Fuller believed in federalism, and he demon-
strated this belief in his votes with the conserva-
tive majority on the Court. Writing for the
majority in United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 156
U.S. 1, 15 S. Ct. 249, 39 L. Ed. 325 (1895), Fuller
took the teeth out of the SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST
ACT of July 2, 1890, which had declared illegal
“every contract, combination in the form of a
trust, or conspiracy in restraint of trade and
commerce among the several states” (26 Stat.
209, c. 647). Finding in favor of the Sugar Trust,
a corporation that controlled virtually all sugar
refining, Fuller held that a MONOPOLY of manu-
facturing was not a monopoly of trade or com-
merce prohibited by the Sherman Act, as the
manufacture of a product for sale is not com-
merce. It was up to each state, not the federal
government, to protect its citizens from monop-
olistic business practices. The mere fact that
goods were transported in interstate commerce
was not sufficient to give Congress, under the
COMMERCE CLAUSE, the authority to regulate
business. The holding in Knight survived until
the NEW DEAL era of the 1930s, when power
shifted to the federal government.
Fuller’s belief in a limited role for the federal
government was also demonstrated in POLLOCK
V. FARMERS’ LOAN & TRUST CO. , 157 U.S. 429, 15
S. Ct. 673, 39 L. Ed. 759 (1895). In Pollock, Fuller
ruled invalid a federal law that imposed a two-
percent tax on incomes of more than $4,000.
Article I of the Constitution requires that “direct
taxes shall be apportioned among the several
states . . . according to their respective numbers.”
In a 5–4 vote, Fuller’s Court held that the new
INCOME TAX was a direct tax insofar as it was
based on incomes derived from land and, as
such, it had to be apportioned among the states.
As the law did not provide for APPORTIONMENT,
