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 Sidney Breese was born on July 15, 1800, in Whitesboro, New York. In 1818 he graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, and moved to Kaskaskia, Illinois, where he studied law in the office of Elian Kent Kane, and was admitted to the bar in 1820. He also served as Kaskaskia’s postmaster in 1821. In 1822, Governor Shadrach Bond appointed him as state’s attorney. In 1826, President John Quincy Adams appointed him as the U.S. District Attorney for Illinois, a position he held until President Andrew Jackson removed him in 1829. With the outbreak of the Black Hawk War he enlisted as a private and rose in rank to become a lieutenant colonel of volunteers. After the war he continued the practice of law, and in 1835 the legislature appointed him judge of the 2nd Judicial Circuit. The Illinois General Assembly elected him to the Illinois Supreme Court in 1841, and he continued to serve as judge for the 2nd Judicial Circuit. He resigned from the bench after his election to the U.S. Senate in December 1842. During his term as U.S. Senator (1843 - 1849), he supported federal land grants to the Illinois Central Railroad. Elected to the state legislature in 1850, he became Speaker of the House. In 1857, he was again elected to the Illinois Supreme Court, reelected in 1861, and again in 1870. During his tenure, he served as Chief Justice from 1867 - 1870, and from 1873 - 1874. Judge Breese is the only Supreme Court Justice to have sat on the bench under the 1818, 1848, and 1870 constitutions. Judge Breese died on June 27, 1878, in Pinckneyville, Illinois.
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