John (Marshall) Harlan - Biographical Information, Tenure at the Supreme Court, Death and Legacy

Jurist, born in Boyle Co, Kentucky, USA. He studied at Transylvania University and was admitted to the bar in 1853. An unsuccessful candidate for the US House of Representatives in 1858, he was a presidential elector on the Bell–Everett (Constitutional Union) ticket in 1860. Appointed to the Supreme Court where he became the outstanding liberal justice, he served 34 years (1877–1911), and is best remembered for defending the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments as upholders of African-American civil rights.

John Marshall Harlan

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Term in office
December 10, 1877 – October 14, 1911
Preceded by	David Davis
Succeeded by	Mahlon Pitney
Nominated by	Rutherford B. Hayes
Born	June 1, 1833 Boyle County, Kentucky
Died	October 14, 1911 Washington, D.C.

John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was an American Supreme Court associate justice.

Biographical Information

Harlan was born into a prominent Kentucky slaveholding family, his father a well-known Kentucky politician and former Congressman.

Harlan firmly supported slavery but fought to preserve the Union. Harlan joined the Republican party in 1868 and remained a Republican for the rest of his life, and, befitting his new party, he turned strongly against slavery, calling it "the most perfect despotism that ever existed on this earth."

Tenure at the Supreme Court

He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1877 by President Rutherford B. While serving on the Court, Harlan supplemented his income by teaching Constitutional Law at a night law school which became part of George Washington University.

On the Court, Harlan became known as "the great dissenter." As the Court moved away from interpreting the Reconstruction Amendments to protect African Americans, Harlan wrote several eloquent dissents in support of equal rights for African Americans and racial equality. In the Civil Rights Cases (1883), the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, holding that the act exceeded Congressional powers. Harlan alone dissented, vigorously, charging that the majority had subverted the Reconstruction Amendments: "The substance and spirit of the recent amendments of the constitution have been sacrificed by a subtle and ingenious verbal criticism."

Harlan was the first justice to argue that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Bill of Rights (making rights guarantees applicable to the states), in Hurtado v. Today, virtually all of the protections of the Bill of Rights and Civil War amendments are now incorporated, though not by the theory advanced by Harlan.

Harlan also dissented in Lochner v. Ferguson (1896)

In 1896, the Supreme Court handed down one of the most reviled decisions in its history, Plessy v. (While the Court held that separate facilities had to be equal, in practice the facilities designated for blacks were invariably subpar.)

Harlan was once again alone in dissenting. In stirring language that would inspire Civil Rights activists for generations more, Harlan declared: "But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. Harlan argued that the Louisiana law at issue in the case, which forced separation of white and black passengers on railway cars, was a "badge of servitude" that degraded African-Americans, and correctly predicted that the Court's ruling would become as infamous as its ruling in the Dred Scott case.

Harlan also used this dissent to showcase his racism towards the Chinese, describing them as "a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States."

Death and Legacy

Harlan died on October 14, 1911 after 33 years with the Supreme Court, one of the longest tenures in history. Many regard Harlan as one of the most important, controversial, and visionary Supreme Court Justices in U.S. History.

It is also said that Harlan's attitudes towards civil rights were influenced by the social principles of the Presbyterian Church.

His grandson, John Marshall Harlan II, was also an associate Supreme Court justice.

There are collections of Harlan's papers at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky and at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C..