John Appleton (July 12, 1804 – February 7, 1891) was a prominent American legal reformer, jurist, and scholar in the fields of constitutional economics and classical liberalism.

Appleton is known for his jurisprudence in rules of evidence and individual rights, and was one of the first proponents of laissez-faire constitutionalism, decades before the doctrine was mainstreamed across the United States under the Lochner Court.

[1][2][3][4] Appleton corresponded regularly with famous British philosopher John Stuart Mill and was considered very influential on his work.

[7] While on the bench, Appleton led the court to strike down a number of post-Civil War economic subsidies passed by the Maine Legislature and local governments.

There, one of Appleton's students was Benjamin Robbins Curtis, who would go on to be one of only two Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court to dissent in Dred Scott v.

Shortly thereafter, he moved back to Maine to study under his relative Nathan Dane Appleton, who owned a law practice in Alfred in York County.

In the same year that Allen took up his seat in Washington, Appleton was appointed to be the Reporter of Decisions for the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

Appleton was an opponent of the prevailing legal philosophy of the time that assumed juries could not rationally discern between reliable and unreliable testimony and evidence.

[9][16] On October 24, 1862, a little more than a decade after first being called to the bench and in the wake of his national recognition in legal reform, Appleton was appointed to serve as the Chief Justice of Maine by Governor Israel Washburn.

[3][7] In 1864, while Appleton was chief justice, the court ruled that judges were prohibited from commenting on the failure of a defendant to testify under their right to silence.

[1] Appleton was also a proponent of legal recognition for racial minorities, advocating publicly against state laws at the time which prohibited African-Americans and Native Americans from testifying against a white person in court.

[16] Appleton corresponded regularly with John Stuart Mill, a prominent British philosopher, about racial integration and the rights of minorities in the aftermath of the Civil War.

[16][18] In an essay published in two New England journals, Appleton wrote: “Government has no right to interfere with the religions of its citizens—it is entirely a question between them and their God”.

His oldest, also named John, was a Brigadier General in the Union Army who led a significant detachment of men at the Siege of Port Hudson.