John mclean democrat

John McLean served as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-two years, one of the longest tenures in the history of the Court.

"In the [Dred Scott v.

Sandford] argument, it was said that a colored citizen would not be an agreeable member of society. This is more a matter of taste than law … [for] under the late treaty with Mexico we made citizens of all grades, combinations, and colors."
—John McLean

McLean was born on March 11, 1785, in New Jersey but was raised primarily near Lebanon, Ohio, where his father staked out land that later became the family farm.

McLean attended a county school and later was tutored by two schoolmasters, Presbyterian ministers,

and paid them with money he earned working as a farm hand. In 1804, at the age of nineteen, he began working as an apprentice to the clerk of the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas in Cincinnati and also studied law with Arthur St.

Clair and John S. Gano, two distinguished Cincinnati lawyers.