Morrison Remick "Mott" Waite (November 29, 1816 – March 23, 1888) was an American attorney, jurist, and politician from Ohio who served as the seventh chief justice of the United States from 1874 until his death in 1888.

During his tenure, the Waite Court took a narrow interpretation of federal authority related to laws and amendments that were enacted during the Reconstruction Era to expand the rights of freedmen and protect them from attacks by white supremacy groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

Born in Lyme, Connecticut, Waite established a legal practice in Toledo, Ohio, after graduating from Yale University.

Despite some support for his nomination, he declined to run for president in the 1876 election, arguing that the Supreme Court should not serve as a mere stepping stone to higher office.

[8] One of his partners in Toledo was George P. Estey, a man from New Hampshire who served as a Union Army general during the American Civil War.

He made two unsuccessful bids for the United States Senate, and was offered (but declined) a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court.

[9] In 1871, Waite received an invitation to represent the United States (along with William M. Evarts and Caleb Cushing) as counsel before the Alabama Tribunal at Geneva.

[7] President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Waite as Chief Justice on January 19, 1874, after a political circus related to the appointment.

Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase died in May 1873, and Grant waited six months before first offering the seat in November to the powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who declined.

Finally, after persistent lobbying from Ohioans, including Interior Secretary Columbus Delano, on January 19, 1874, Grant nominated the little-known Waite.

Nationwide sentiment, however, was relief that a non-divisive and competent choice had been made, and Waite was confirmed unanimously as Chief Justice on January 21, 1874, receiving his commission the same day.

But his managerial and social skill, "especially his good humor and sensitivity to others, helped him to maintain a remarkably harmonious and productive court.

[14] In matters of regulation over economic activity, he supported broad national authority, stating his opinion that federal commerce powers must "keep pace with the progress of the country."

The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these 'unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.'

Their convictions under the Enforcement Act were thrown out not because the statutes were unconstitutional, but because the indictments under which the men were charged were infirm because they failed to allege specifically that the murders were committed on account of the victims' race.

In the 1870s, white Democrats regained power in southern legislatures; they passed Jim Crow laws suppressing blacks as second-class citizens.

After years of elections surrounded by fraud and violence to suppress black voting, from 1890 to 1908 (after Waite's death) all the Democrat-dominated southern state legislatures passed new constitutions or amendments that disfranchised most African Americans and many poor whites in the South.

In Minor v. Happersett (1875), using the restricted definition of national citizenship and the 14th Amendment as set forth in the Slaughterhouse Cases (1873), Waite upheld the states' right to deny women the franchise.

[14] In his opinion in Munn v. Illinois (1877), one of six Granger cases involving Populist-inspired state legislation to fix maximum rates chargeable by grain elevators and railroads, Waite wrote that when a business or private property was "affected with a public interest", it was subject to governmental regulation.

[15] In particular, New Dealers in the Franklin Roosevelt administration looked to Munn v. Illinois for guidance in interpreting due process, as well as the Commerce and Contract Clauses.

As Chief Justice, Waite swore in Presidents Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur and Grover Cleveland.

Thomas Hartmann, in his book Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and Theft of Human Rights, has the following to say:[18] In these two sentences (according to the conventional wisdom), Waite weakened the kind of democratic republic the original authors of the Constitution had envisioned, and set the stage for the future worldwide damage of our environmental, governmental, and cultural commons.

Published reports indicated the Chief Justice would be buried in a family plot he had purchased in Forest Hill Cemetery, but he was not interred there.

Waite, who had financial difficulties during his service as Chief Justice, left a very small estate that was insufficient to support his widow and daughters.