Stanley Matthews (judge)

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Thomas Stanley Matthews (July 21, 1824 – March 22, 1889), known as Stanley Matthews, was an American lawyer, Civil War officer, judge, and Republican senator from Ohio who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1881 until his death in 1889. He is remembered as a progressive judge who wrote the landmark ruling Yick Wo v. Hopkins, which protected equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment for Chinese laundry workers in San Francisco.

Matthews was born in Cincinnati, the oldest of 11 children. He studied law and began his career as a newspaper editor and lawyer, including time editing the antislavery Cincinnati Morning Herald. He served as clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives, a county judge in Cincinnati, and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. He left government service to serve in the Civil War, first as lieutenant colonel of the 23rd Ohio Infantry and later as colonel of the 51st Ohio Infantry, fighting in battles such as Carnifex Ferry. He returned to Ohio in 1863 and became a judge again, and later practiced law and represented railroads.

In politics, Matthews helped with the disputed 1876 presidential election and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1877 to fill a vacancy, serving until 1879. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1881. After a controversial nomination, he was confirmed by the Senate by a single vote, a rare occurrence. He served on the Court until his death in 1889 and was seen as one of the more progressive justices of his era.

In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, Matthews wrote the unanimous opinion upholding equal protection under the law and striking down a discriminatory San Francisco ordinance against Chinese laundry operations.

Matthews married Mary Ann Black in 1843; they had ten children, four of whom died in a scarlet fever outbreak in 1859. Minnie Matthews died in 1885, and in 1886 he married Mary K. Theaker. Matthews died in Washington, D.C., and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. His papers are held in several libraries.