The American Constitution is not just a certain period in history. It is multiple events happening over a period. It started in 1787, when the American Constitution was written, and the last change that happened was in 1992. However, what is going to be discussed is key playing Justices. The four Justices that are important to history are; John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, and Antonin Scalia. These justices have many aspects that are similar and many that are different. The topics to be covered are their lives, philosophies, and legacies that made them stand out to all who they succeeded and all that followed them.
Between these four justices only one is a Democrat, that would be Louis Brandeis. The other three; John Marshall Harlan, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Antonin Scalia were Republicans. John Marshall Harlan was a Supreme Court justice from 1877 to 1911. He was appointed by Rutherford B. Hayes. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a justice from 1902 to 1932, he was appointed by Theodore Roosevelt. Louis Brandeis was a justice from 1916-1939, he was appointed by Woodrow Wilson. The most recent Justice is Antonin Scalia, who was a justice for the Supreme Court from 1986 to 2016, he was appointed by Ronald Reagan.
The first Justice to be discussed is John Marshall Harlan. John Marshall Harlan was born in the state of Kentucky to a slave holding family, which is the only one out of these four justices. John Marshall Harlan was born in the year 1833. His father was a lawyer as well as a congressman. “He earned his bachelor’s degree at a college in Danville, then when he passed the bar in 1853, he entered into politics as a member of the Whig party”. Harlan also joined the Union army and when he left the war, he had achieved the rank of colonel. Harlan is under the republican Party. John Marshall Harlan set himself apart from the other three justices by being a slave owner. Especially since Oliver Wendell Holmes was an abolitionist. However, Harlan and Louis Brandeis had one thing in common, they were both born and raised in the state of Kentucky.
Louis Brandeis was born in raised in Louisville, Kentucky to a Jewish family. Brandeis was born in the year 1856 to Jewish parents. One thing that they believed in “was strengthening democracy in order to protect the common man’s dignity and right to self-development”. This ideology in his home life, more than likely influenced how he thought and how he administered his political career. He was the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court. Brandeis did not receive a college degree however, he continued to Harvard Law School. Which is another aspect that John Marshall Harlan and Brandeis have in common, they both went to law school. One of the most notable aspects of Brandeis’ life is before he became a Supreme Court justice. Before he became a justice, he was a lawyer that fought to protect industrial workers and women. As he was fighting for their rights he introduced an argument known as the “Brandeis Brief, which many lawyers followed as a way to present their evidence and opinion to the Court”. The one difference that makes Louis Brandeis stand out compared to the other three Justices is that the he is the only one that is a democrat.
Harlan and Brandeis both differ from the next Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes because Holmes was not from the Midwest. He was born and raised in the state Massachusetts. Holmes was born in the year 1841. His father was an accomplish “author and physician, who he was named after and his mother was, Amelia Lee Jackson, who was a big supporter of the abolitionist movement”. With his mother’s ideas and beliefs, Holmes had a major influence on his political ambitions and what he believed were basic rights that needed to be enforced with a legal action. Oliver Wendell Holmes completed his degree and passed the bar from Harvard Law School. However, he did not do this till after the 1864. Holmes enlisted into the Union army during the Civil War, which out of the four Justices that are being compared, him and John Marshall Harlan are the only two to have completed a military service. “After Holmes completed his degree, after the war, he wrote many articles on legal issues and he joined Harvard’s faculty to lecture about law”. Oliver Wendell Holmes was like Harlan in his political party, as he was also a republican.
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The next Justice to be discussed concerning his life is Antonin Scalia, who was an Italian American. One aspect that he had in common with Oliver Wendell Holmes is that he was born and raised on the East coast. Scalia was born in the City of New Jersey, but it is also mentioned that he lived in New York City as well. Antonin Scalia was born in the year of 1936, “to Salvadore and Catherine Panaro”. His father transferred from a teenager that travelled through Ellis Island to a college graduate and a professor of romance literature at an esteemed institution. “With his father is a teaching position, even though it was not in a legal subject, Scalia wished to teach as well. So, in 1967, Scalia took a teaching position at the University of Virginia”. Like both Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Marshall Harlan, Antonin Scalia is a republican.
As stated, each of these justices had differences in their lives; how they grew up and how they started their careers. However, they also had many similarities that impacted their political stances and their mindsets when they faced controversial cases. When thinking of these Justices there are certain cases that stand out, cases that made these justices famous.
For John Marshall Harlan that case was Plessy v. Ferguson. In this case, John Marshall Harlan believed that the rights of African Americans should be protected. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, Harlan was the only one out of all the justices that voted that the 14th amendment protected the rights of African Americans in the United States from segregation of any kind. However, this case was ruled that it was fine for the races to be segregated if the facilities or opportunities were equal. Even though Harlan believed that the civil rights of other races should be protected and upheld that did not mean that he believed everyone was equal. Harlan believed that whites were the dominant race however, “he believed that while the other races would die out, Anglo Saxons would be preserved but only if they did their duty and protected the liberty interests of citizens that had be subjugated in American, which was the African Americans”. John Marshall Harlan was able to appeal to both races, while still maintain the respect of both, and was able to help both obtain rights and standards that he believed were essential to the American people.
Harlan was also able to help African American people in their quest for equality. “In the case of Cumming v. Richmond County Board of Education, Harlan ruled that the African American people had the same opportunity for education, even though there was a public school that was closed for the African Americans and the school for whites was left open”. This case shows that Harlan, while he was trying to provide equality to one race, he also had to look at it from another side. If he didn’t, there would be a lot more problems that this justice would have encountered on his mission for Civil Rights.
While it is stated that John Marshall Harlan was the justice that was known for fighting for the equality and rights of African Americans, Harlan was known for other aspects that he fought for. One of the most well-known traits of John Marshall Harlan, when concerning the American Constitution, was that he was “very supportive of the civil war amendments; the 13th, 14th, and 15th, as well as making all states support the functions of the Bill of Rights”. During this time, John Marshall Harlan was the only Justice that believed that the Bill of Rights should be used and respected by all the States. Not only did he believe that the Bill of Rights should be used by all, but he also believed that all states, companies, and people should respect and uphold contract clauses. He believed that everybody had the right to own land and the citizens of the United States have the right to own property without state interference. These two aspects, the Bill of Rights and the contract clauses, show that John Marshall Harlan believed that national government power was more important and exceeded the right of the state government’s rights and power.
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