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John Marshall Harlan: The Last Whig Justice
Harlan. Known today to every student of constitutional law, principally for his dissenting opinions in early racial discrimination cases, Harlan was an important actor in every major public issue that came before the Supreme Court during his thirty-three-year tenure.
Named by a hopeful father for Chief Justice John Marshall, Harlan began his career as a member of the Kentucky Whig slavocracy. Loren Beth traces the young lawyer's development from these early years through the secession crisis and Civil War, when Harlan remained loyal to the Union, both as a politician and as a soldier. As Beth demonstrates, Harlan gradually shifted during these years to an antislavery Republicanism that still emphasized his adherence to the Whig principles of Unionism and national power as against states' rights.
Harlan's Supreme Court career (1877-1911) was characterized by his fundamental disagreement with nearly every judicial colleague of his day. His ultimate stance―as the Great Dissenter, the champion of civil rights, the upholder of the powers of Congress―emerges as the logical outgrowth of his pre-Court life. Harlan's significance for today's reader is underlined by the Supreme Court's adoption, beginning in the 1930s, of most of his positions on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
This fine biography is also an important contribution to constitutional history. Historians, political scientists, and legal scholars will come from its pages with renewed appreciation for one of our judicial giants.
Named by a hopeful father for Chief Justice John Marshall, Harlan began his career as a member of the Kentucky Whig slavocracy. Loren Beth traces the young lawyer's development from these early years through the secession crisis and Civil War, when Harlan remained loyal to the Union, both as a politician and as a soldier. As Beth demonstrates, Harlan gradually shifted during these years to an antislavery Republicanism that still emphasized his adherence to the Whig principles of Unionism and national power as against states' rights.
Harlan's Supreme Court career (1877-1911) was characterized by his fundamental disagreement with nearly every judicial colleague of his day. His ultimate stance―as the Great Dissenter, the champion of civil rights, the upholder of the powers of Congress―emerges as the logical outgrowth of his pre-Court life. Harlan's significance for today's reader is underlined by the Supreme Court's adoption, beginning in the 1930s, of most of his positions on the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
This fine biography is also an important contribution to constitutional history. Historians, political scientists, and legal scholars will come from its pages with renewed appreciation for one of our judicial giants.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 1992
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About the author
Loren P. Beth
6 books3 followersLoren Peter Beth was professor emeritus of political science at the University of Georgia, where he taught from 1976 until his retirement in 1989. A native of Illinois, Beth earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1949 and taught at the University of Massachusetts from 1958 until 1976.
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April 6, 2018
Though often a lone dissenter from the prevailing legal thought of his time, the reputation of John Marshall Harlan has enjoyed considerable rehabilitation since his death. Best known for his criticism of the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, his opinions in that and other cases have come to be seen by many legal scholars as precursors to the liberal jurisprudence of the twentieth century. Capping this new appreciation of Harlan's work was Loren P. Beth's biography of the Supreme Court justice, which offers an examination of both Harlan's life and his jurisprudence.
Beth divides his analysis into three parts. The first two are biographical and chronological, examining his life both before and on the Court. Much of the information about his life before his selection to the court comes from reminisces written by Harlan and his wife Malvina, and Beth often includes large sections from them in his text. The Harlan that emerges in these pages is an extremely political man, one who was active in the dramatic struggles of mid-19th century politics. Starting as a Whig, he drifted in the unstable Kentucky party political environment before finally becoming a Republican in 1868. Though unsuccessful in two campaigns for the governorship of Kentucky, Harlan's efforts on behalf of the party in his state helped make him a national political figure, leading to his nomination to the Court in 1877.
The second part of the book, which looks at Harlan's family life, his relationships with his justices, and his role in the politics surrounding the Court, serves as a useful bridge to the final section, which addresses his jurisprudence. Here Beth analyzes his decisions by topic, grouping them into categories so as to identify the underlying legal philosophy that collectively they reveal. While these chapters are informative, they do not succeed in Beth's goal, as illustrated by his subtitle, of demonstrating that Harlan's decisions reflected Whig political ideology, nor does the author reconcile the many inconsistencies and contradictions that existed between the Harlan's life and his jurisprudence. This, along with the poor editing (there are numerous minor factual errors throughout the book, particularly regarding dates), make for the book that is a useful introduction to Harlan's life but not the thorough analytical study that the justice deserves.
Beth divides his analysis into three parts. The first two are biographical and chronological, examining his life both before and on the Court. Much of the information about his life before his selection to the court comes from reminisces written by Harlan and his wife Malvina, and Beth often includes large sections from them in his text. The Harlan that emerges in these pages is an extremely political man, one who was active in the dramatic struggles of mid-19th century politics. Starting as a Whig, he drifted in the unstable Kentucky party political environment before finally becoming a Republican in 1868. Though unsuccessful in two campaigns for the governorship of Kentucky, Harlan's efforts on behalf of the party in his state helped make him a national political figure, leading to his nomination to the Court in 1877.
The second part of the book, which looks at Harlan's family life, his relationships with his justices, and his role in the politics surrounding the Court, serves as a useful bridge to the final section, which addresses his jurisprudence. Here Beth analyzes his decisions by topic, grouping them into categories so as to identify the underlying legal philosophy that collectively they reveal. While these chapters are informative, they do not succeed in Beth's goal, as illustrated by his subtitle, of demonstrating that Harlan's decisions reflected Whig political ideology, nor does the author reconcile the many inconsistencies and contradictions that existed between the Harlan's life and his jurisprudence. This, along with the poor editing (there are numerous minor factual errors throughout the book, particularly regarding dates), make for the book that is a useful introduction to Harlan's life but not the thorough analytical study that the justice deserves.
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