Melville Weston Fuller

Fuller, Melville Weston (1833–1910), U.S. jurist. He was a member of the Illinois constitutional convention, Illinois state legislator (1862), arbitrator in the Great Britain-Venezuela boundary dispute (1897–99), and peace commissioner at the Hague (1900–10). As chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1880–1910), Fuller wrote 2 important opinions (1895): Pollock v. Farmer's Loan and Trust Co., in which he invalidated the national income tax and United States v. E.C. Knight Co., in which he so narrowly defined the Sherman Anti-Trust Act that it applied only to transportation.

See also: Supreme Court of the United States.