Samuel Seabury was born in New York City in 1873. A lawyer, he served on the supreme court (1907-14) and the court of appeals (1914-16) in New York.

In 1930 Seabury was selected to head the investigations into political corruption in New York City. As a result of his investigations, James Walker, the mayor of the city, was forced to resign. The brought about the decline of the Tammany Society in city politics and Fiorello LaGuardia was elected as the new mayor. Seabury, the author of The New Federalism (1950), died in New York in 1958.