Editing Caleb Cushing (section)

===Supreme Court nomination===
[[File:Cushing Nomination.JPG|thumb|alt= upright=.95|Cushing's Chief Justice nomination]]
On January 9, 1874, Grant nominated Cushing as [[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] of the [[United States Supreme Court]]. The nomination came soon after Grant withdrew the nomination of [[George Henry Williams]] to the position.<ref name=RL33225>{{cite report| last=McMillion| first=Barry J.| date= January 28, 2022| title=Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 to 2020: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President| url=https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL33225.pdf| publisher=Congressional Research Service| location=Washington, D.C.| access-date=February 15, 2022}}</ref> The selection caught many off-guard, including Cushing himself.<ref>{{cite news| title=THE CHIEF JUSTICESHIP.; CALEB CUSHING NOMINATED. NO ACTION YET BY THE SENATE--SENATORS AND OTHERS TAKEN BY SURPRISE. OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST MR. CUSHING. MR. CUSHING HIMSELF SURPRISED| newspaper=The New York Times| date=January 10, 1874| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1874/01/10/archives/the-chief-justiceship-caleb-cushing-nominated-no-action-yet-by-the.html| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref> [[Radical Republicans]] in the U.S. Senate immediately challenged Cushing's loyalties on account of his earlier close personal rapport with Andrew Johnson and his alleged pre-Civil War [[Copperhead (politics)|Copperhead]] sympathies. Their feelings of distrust turned into all out opposition to his confirmation when a (non-political) letter that Cushing had written in 1861 to [[President of the Confederate States of America|President of the Confederacy]] [[Jefferson Davis]] was found and made public. As a result of rising furor, the nomination was withdrawn on January 13, 1874.<ref>{{cite journal| last=Swindler| first=William F.| title=The Politics of "Advice and Consent"| year=1970| journal=Popular Media| volume=269| url=https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/popular_media/269| publisher=William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository| access-date=April 2, 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=John S. Goff|title=The Rejection of United States Supreme Court Appointments|journal=The American Journal of Legal History|year=1961|volume=5|issue=4|pages=357–368|doi=10.2307/844034|jstor=844034}}</ref>