ABSTRACT
Morrison Remick Waite—the seventh chief justice of the United States, serving 1874–1888—was born in Lyme, Connecticut. A competent administrator, Waite proved to be essentially an economic and constitutional conservative when deciding property rights cases as well as issues involving civil liberties. After graduating from Yale College in 1837, Waite moved to Ohio where he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1839. Waite gained national prominence in 1871 when President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to serve as one of three US counselors at the Geneva Arbitration Tribunal established to settle claims against Great Britain arising out of that nation's assistance to the Confederacy during the Civil War. In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 US 3, Waite was with an eight-one majority declaring unconstitutional provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 that prohibited racial discrimination in hotels and other public accommodations.
