
John McLean (11 March 1785 – 4 April 1861) was a member of the US House of Representatives (DR-OH 1) from 4 March 1813 to 8 October 1816 (succeeding Jeremiah Morrow and preceding William Henry Harrison), US Postmaster General from 26 June 1823 to 4 June 1829 (succeeding Return J. Meigs Jr. and preceding William T. Barry), and an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court from 7 March 1829 to 4 April 1861 (succeeding Robert Trimble and preceding Noah Haynes Swayne).
Biography[]
John McLean was born in Morris County, New Jersey in 1785, the brother of Finis McLean, and his family lived in several frontier towns before ultimately settling in Ridgeville, Warren County, Ohio. He became a lawyer in 1807 and founded The Western Star in Lebanon, and he went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1813 to 1816 before serving on the Ohio Supreme Court from 1816 to 1822. He then served as Postmaster General from 1823 to 1829, presiding over a major expansion of the USPS. In 1829, President Andrew Jackson appointed McLean to the US Supreme Court, and he became known as an opponent of slavery who was supported as a presidential candidate at the 1848 Whig National Convention and the 1856 and 1860 Republican National Conventions. He died in office in 1861.