Justice Philip Barbour, the only person to serve as both Speaker of the U.S. House and a Supreme Court justice, spent less than five years on the high court. Some historians have argued his tenure was too brief to leave a lasting mark, though his record invites a closer look.
Born in May 1783 in Virginia, Barbour’s exact birthplace is disputed, with accounts placing it near Orange County or in Williamsburg. After a short stint practicing law in Kentucky, he returned to Virginia in 1802. He and his wife, who was also his first cousin, had seven children, naming the youngest three sons Quintus, Sextus, and Septimus.
Barbour’s rise was rapid. He won a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1812 and entered the U.S. House of Representatives in 1814. His brother James Barbour served as Virginia’s governor and later as a U.S. senator while Philip served in the House. The brothers diverged politically. James aligned with Henry Clay’s postwar nationalism, while Philip embraced agrarian, strict-construction, states’ rights principles. Philip opposed the national bank and protective tariffs and was described by some accounts as the first major political figure to frame a protective tariff as unconstitutional rather than merely unfair. Both Barbour brothers argued that proposed conditions on Missouri’s admission to statehood were unconstitutional.
As counsel for Virginia in Cohens v. Virginia in 1821, Barbour contended the Supreme Court lacked authority to review a criminal case from a Virginia court. The court rejected that view in a unanimous decision by Chief Justice John Marshall, who affirmed the Supreme Court’s appellate power over conflicting state decisions. Later that year, Barbour became Speaker of the House, replacing John Taylor of New York after Taylor’s antislavery positions during the Missouri Compromise debates cost him Southern support. Barbour was the first Virginian to hold the speakership, serving during the 17th Congress from 1821 to 1823.
In 1829, when former President James Monroe stepped down as president of Virginia’s constitutional convention due to illness, delegates unanimously chose Barbour to lead. Discussed as a potential cabinet pick for President Andrew Jackson, he instead received a recess appointment to the federal district court in eastern Virginia in October 1830. Not all contemporaries were admirers. John Quincy Adams wrote in 1831 that Barbour was unfit to lead the court and would endanger the Union.
Southern politicians unhappy with Martin Van Buren as Jackson’s running mate in 1832 pushed to replace him with Barbour, but Barbour withdrew his name, clearing the way for Van Buren and improving Barbour’s standing with Jackson. Jackson nominated Barbour to the Supreme Court in December 1835 to succeed Justice Gabriel Duvall. The Senate confirmed him 30-11 on March 15, 1836, the same day Roger Taney was confirmed as chief justice. Barbour became one of six Jackson appointees to the court, the most by any 19th century president.
Justice Philip Barbour and New York v. Miln
Barbour’s most notable opinion came in New York v. Miln in 1837, which upheld a New York statute regulating ships that brought immigrants. He treated the law as a valid exercise of state police power. In doing so, he argued for a narrower view of Congress’ commerce authority and a broader conception of state police powers, which he described as unqualified and exclusive. He wrote that persons were not the subject of commerce.
Barbour wrote roughly a dozen opinions and dissented only twice. He most often voted alongside fellow Southerners Justice John Catron and Chief Justice Roger Taney. Scholars have suggested that had he lived longer, he likely would have emerged as an even more forceful champion of states’ rights, similar to his successor, Justice Peter Daniel, who later sided with the majority in Dred Scott v. Sandford.
Barbour died in his sleep in February 1841 at age 57 from heart disease, during oral arguments in the Amistad case. The court later ruled 7-1 that the Africans seized aboard the ship had been illegally kidnapped and were free individuals under Spanish law.
Justice Joseph Story remembered Barbour as conscientious, upright, and diligent, and Justice Lewis Powell later observed that Barbour’s brief tenure produced few opinions and consistent alignment with Taney. For more on contemporary Supreme Court developments, see Supreme Court grants cases on DOGE data, asylum, appeals.
