Born in Haddam, Connecticut, he was the sixth of the nine children of David Dudley Field I, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Submit Dickinson, a teacher.

After reading law in Albany with Harmanus Bleecker and New York City with his brother David, Stephen was admitted to the bar.

An opponent of his wrote that Field's life would be "found to be one series of little-mindedness, meanlinesses, of braggadocio, pusillanimity, and contemptible vanity.

[9] The number of seats on the United States Supreme Court was expanded from nine to ten in March 1863, as a result of the Tenth Circuit Act.

[11] Seeking to effect both a regional and political balance on the Court, Lincoln selected Field, a westerner and Unionist Democrat.

Finding Field dozing in the robing room, Harlan later related what happened next: “The old man listened, gradually became alert, and finally, with his eyes blazing with the fire of youth, he burst out, ‘Yes, and a dirtier day’s work I never did in my life.

"[21] Field's vocal advocacy of substantive due process was illustrated in his dissents to the Slaughter-House Cases and Munn v. Illinois.

In both Munn v. Illinois and Mugler v. Kansas, Justice Field based his dissent on the protection of property interests by the Due Process clause.

In other cases he helped end the income tax (Pollock v. Farmers' Loan and Trust Company), limited antitrust law (United States v. E.C.

Field dissented in the landmark case Strauder v. West Virginia, where the majority opinion held that the exclusion of African-Americans from juries violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

[22] Serving as an individual jurist in district court, he notably struck down the so-called 'Pigtail Ordinance' in 1879, which was regarded as discriminating against Chinese, making him unpopular with the Californian public.