circuit court for the Sixth Circuit. Cleveland asked his friend Jackson, who was still serving in the Senate, to recommend potential replacements, but the President ignored his advice and instead offered the seat to him. The senator attempted to decline, but Cleveland's insistence eventually led him to agree to be nominated. The Senate unanimously confirmed Jackson. During his seven-year tenure, he heard a variety of cases, a number of which pertained to patent issues. In 1889, Jackson urged his friend Harrison – who by then had become president – to appoint his judicial colleague Henry Billings Brown to the Supreme Court; although Harrison declined to appoint Brown that year, he elevated him to fill a subsequent vacancy the next year. Jackson's most noteworthy opinion on the circuit court was In re Greene (1892), the first case in which a federal court applied the Sherman Antitrust Act. The ruling in Greene rejected a Sherman Act indictment against whiskey producers on the basis that the defendants were not preventing other firms from entering the whiskey market. Jackson's narrow interpretation of the Act set the stage for later consequential antitrust cases, including United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895), and it continued to influence interstate commerce law for half a century. In other cases, Jackson took a broader view of constitutional provisions. His 1893 ruling in United States v. Patrick interpreted the Civil Rights Act of 1870 expansively. The defendants in Patrick, who were residents of Tennessee, had been charged with killing several federal officers while they were searching for an illegal still. A lower federal court threw out the indictments, holding the officers were not exercising any legally protected civil right while they were carrying out their duties. Jackson rejected these arguments. In his view, federal officers have a constitutionally protected right "of accepting the public employment, and engaging in the administration of its functions". On that basis, Jackson concluded the prosecution under the Civil Rights Act could go forward since the officers' civil rights had been violated. Some Southerners denounced the ruling, objecting that it expanded the scope of an already loathed law. Jackson's decision also showed that his stances were sufficiently moderate to coalesce with the Republican agenda. Supreme Court nomination On January 23, 1893, Supreme Court Justice Lucius Q. C. Lamar died. At this point, President Harrison was a lame duck: Grover Cleveland had won the 1892 presidential