Benjamin Robbins Curtis

Benjamin Robbins Curtis was born across the way in 1809 and died in 1874. The son of a New England shipmaster and a Watertown mother, he strongly influenced the protection of American ideas of constitutional government during times of intense political excitement. His power of clear statement made him the leading lawyer of his time. As a Judge in the Supreme Court of the United States in 1857, he wrote the famous dissenting opinion on the Dred Scott Case, a great factor in clarifying Northern sentiment on the slavery issue. By his argument as Senior Council for President Johnson in the impeachment proceedings before the Senate in 1868, he defeated the impeachment and steadied the government of the United States.

Watertown, Massachusetts · United States