Biography:
Edward Sanford was elevated from his perch as a federal trial judge in Tennessee to the nation's highest court by President Warren G. Harding after the strenuous lobbying efforts of Chief Justice William Howard Taft. Sanford seemed to return that loyalty by joining with the Chief Justice regularly while they were on the Court. Sanford also participated in Taft's "inner club" of conservative justices who met at Taft's home on Sunday afternoons.
Sanford contributed to the domain of civil liberties when he spoke for the Court upholding a state anarchy statute. Implicit in Sanford's reasoning was the notion that some provisions of the Bill of Rights apply with equal force to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. This idea would have extraordinary consequences for the nationalization of the Bill of Rights during the era of the Warren Court.
Sanford's career on the Court ended when he died unexpectedly on the same day as the death of his mentor, retired Chief Justice William Howard Taft.
