-LRB- Mental Floss -RRB- -- From the moment Justice David Souter announced he 'd be stepping down , Washington has been gearing up for a confirmation fight . But as Senator Lindsey Graham -LRB- R-S.C . -RRB- told Judge Sonia Sotomayor yesterday , `` Unless you have a complete meltdown , you are going to get confirmed . '' Robert Bork is not the only nominee who did not make it to the Supreme Court . Let 's take a look back at eight nominees who did n't make it to the bench , at least on their first try . 1 . Robert Bork In our time , the most famous rejected nominee is Robert H. Bork , a legal scholar and U.S. Court of Appeals judge with a long paper trail of conservative opinions . Nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987 , Bork could have tilted the Court decisively to the right . As a known quantity , he was an easy target for liberal opponents , who organized a campaign against him . He was rejected by the Senate Judiciary Committee after 12 days of hearings . Mental Floss : Washington 's struggle to find a chief justice 2 . Alexander Wolcott `` Oh degraded Country ! How humiliating to the friends of moral virtue -- of religion and of all that is dear to the lover of his Country ! '' the New-York Gazette Advertiser wailed in 1811 over President James Madison 's nomination of customs inspector Alexander Wolcott . Wolcott 's strong enforcement of the controversial embargoes against Great Britain and France cost him support in the Senate and in the press . The Senate turned him down by a 9-24 vote , the widest rejection in Supreme Court history . 3 . Roger Taney Roger B. Taney -LRB- pronounced tawny -RRB- is largely remembered as the chief justice who handed down the Dred Scott decision in 1857 . With his sepulchral countenance , Taney is inextricably linked to the grim ruling that all blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States . But when President Andrew Jackson nominated him in 1835 as associate justice , opposition Whigs were still smarting from Taney 's removal of government deposits from the Second Bank of the United States while he was a recess-appointed Secretary of the Treasury . The Senate voted to indefinitely postpone the nomination . However , after Chief Justice John Marshall died in 1836 , Jackson sent Taney 's name up again . He was confirmed , this time as chief justice . 4 . Ebenezer Hoar You might think the Senate just could n't stomach elevating to the highest court in the land a man with the name Ebenezer Hoar , but it seems the senators were offended by something other than aesthetics . As President Ulysses S. Grant 's attorney general , Hoar had insisted on rewarding merit rather than political loyalty , thus blocking a well-trod route for patronage . So when Grant nominated Hoar to the Court in 1869 , miffed Republican senators gave the virtuous Hoar thumbs down . Mental Floss : What was Marbury v. Madison ? Who were Roe and Wade ? 5 and 6 . Wheeler Hazard Peckham and William B. Hornblower A senator has the right to reject a court nomination simply because the nominee is from the senator 's home state . Upon this invocation of `` senatorial courtesy '' rests the demise of Wheeler Hazard Peckham and William B. Hornblower . Both men were nominated by President Grover Cleveland . Both nominees were New Yorkers , and New York Sen. David Hill invoked senatorial courtesy to squelch their nominations in 1894 . -LRB- Peckham 's brother , Rufus Wheeler Peckham , became a justice in 1896 . -RRB- 7 . Harriet Miers Some nominees withdrew themselves from consideration before they could be rejected . Such was the case of Harriet Miers , whom President George W. Bush nominated in 2005 , but withdrew under criticism that she was unqualified . Mental Floss : Why there 's a Mohammed statue at the Supreme Court ? 8 . Douglas Ginsburg Another withdrawal was that of Douglas Ginsburg -LRB- not related to current justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -RRB- , the conservative , former pot-smoking federal appellate judge who is a footnote in the Bork saga . After Bork was Borked , Reagan eyed the more moderate Anthony Kennedy for the seat . But Sen. Jesse Helms -LRB- R-N.C . -RRB- threatened a filibuster . So Reagan turned right again and proposed Ginsburg . But there was no getting around the revelation that Ginsburg had inhaled . Ginsburg withdrew himself from consideration , Reagan put forward Kennedy and the Senate , eager to move on , easily confirmed him . For more mental_floss articles , visit mentalfloss.com