Thomas Stanley Matthews
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Thomas Stanley Matthews (July 21, 1824 - March 22, 1889) was a Republican politician and jurist from Ohio. He served in the U.S. Senate and as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Matthews studied at Kenyon College. He practiced law in Cincinnati and Maury County, Tennessee from 1840-1845. After editing the Cincinnati Herald from 1846-1848, Matthews served as the clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives and a county judge in Hamilton County, Ohio. Elected to the Ohio State Senate, Matthews served there from 1856-1857 before taking an appointment as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio from 1858-1861. He then resigned to serve as a lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. He ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1876, but lost. He won a special election to the Senate a year later to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of John Sherman. He did not run for re-election. Rutherford Hayes nominated Matthews for a position as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1881. It being near the end of Hayes's term, the Senate did not act on the nomination. He was renominated by James Garfield and confirmed on May 12, 1881. He served on the Supreme Court until his death in 1889.
| Preceded by: John Sherman | United States Senators from Ohio March 21, 1887 – March 3, 1889 | Succeeded by: George H. Pendleton |
| Preceded by: Noah Haynes Swayne | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States May 17, 1881 – March 22, 1889 | Succeeded by: David Josiah Brewer |