Joseph Philo Bradley (March 14, 1813 – January 22, 1892) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1870 to 1892.

[2] In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced Joseph Bradley $250[citation needed] to study for the ministry at Rutgers University.

[3] On February 7, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Bradley as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,[4] to the seat created by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

[4] Bradley took a broad view of the national government's powers under the Commerce Clause but interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment somewhat narrowly, as did much of the rest of the court at the time.

Bradley concurred with the court's decision in Bradwell v. Illinois, which held that the right to practice law was not constitutionally protected under the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Bradley disagreed with the majority opinion, apparently because it rested on the decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, but concurred in the judgment on grounds that the clause did not protect women in their choice of vocation.

Bradley dissented in Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Minnesota, which, though not racially motivated, was another due process case arising from the Fourteenth Amendment.

This is perhaps ironic in light of his dissent in the railroad case, since the Hans doctrine is entirely based on judicial activism and, as Bradley admitted in his opinion, not supported by the text of the Constitution.

Bradley was the 15th and final member of the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 presidential election between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J.

There have been detailed but unproven claims over the years that Bradley originally planned to come down on the side of Tilden, but was lobbied into changing his mind on the night before the final decision.

The study showed Bradley chose to use his position as a Supreme Court Justice to undo reconstruction, regressing on civil rights and opening a new era of oppression".