Thomas Stanley Matthews

Infobox Judge
name = Thomas Stanley Matthews

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office = Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
termstart = May 17, 1881
termend = March 22, 1889
nominator = James Garfield
appointer =
predecessor = Noah Haynes Swayne
successor = David Josiah Brewer
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termstart2 =
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birthdate = birth date|1824|7|21|mf=y
birthplace = Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.
deathdate = death date and age|1889|3|22|1824|7|21|mf=y
deathplace = Washington, D.C., U.S.
spouse = Mary A. Matthews

Thomas Stanley Matthews (July 21, 1824 – March 22, 1889), generally known in adulthood as Stanley Matthews, was a Republican politician and jurist from Ohio. He served in the U.S. Senate and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Matthews was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and Matthews studied at Kenyon College. He practiced law in Cincinnati and in Maury County, Tennessee from 1840 to 1845. After editing the "Cincinnati Herald" from 1846-1848, Matthews served as the clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives and a county judge in Hamilton County, Ohio. He was then elected to the Ohio State Senate, where he served in 1856 and 1857. He was then appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, serving from 1858 to 1861.

In 1861, Matthews resigned as U.S. Attorney to serve as a lieutenant colonel with the 23rd Ohio Infantry of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Matthews ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1876, but was defeated. A year later, he won a special election to the Senate a year later to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of John Sherman. He did not seek reelection.

Early in 1881, President Rutherford B. Hayes nominated Matthews for a position as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Matthews was a controversial nominee, and as the nomination came near the end of Hayes's term, the Senate did not act on it. Upon succeeding Hayes, oncoming President James A. Garfield renominated Matthews, and the Senate confirmed him by a vote of 24 to 23, the narrowest confirmation for a successful U.S. Supreme Court nominee in history. He served on the Court until his death in 1889.

A collection of Matthews's correspondence and other papers is located at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center library and open for research.

External links

*CongBio|M000255 Retrieved on 2008-02-14
*findagrave|5694 Retrieved on 2008-02-14