Judicial enigma
Subtitle: the first justice Harlan
By: Tinsley E. Yarbrough.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 280
Subjects: Harlan, John Marshall,  1833-1911; United States. Supreme Court -- Biography; Judges -- United States -- Biography
Description: In the decades that followed Reconstruction, the Supreme Court struck down civil rights legislation, validated Jim Crow laws, and stopped the government from regulating big business in almost any form. One justice, however, stood against the conservative trend: John Marshall Harlan. His advocacy of a color-blind Constitution in his powerful dissents established a rich legacy that was validated many decades later by the Warren Court.

But behind the legal opinions, the great dissenter was a complex, enigmatic, even contradictory man. In Judicial Enigma, Tinsley E. Yarbrough offers the most complete portrait we have ever had of this critical figure. He follows Harlan from antebellum Kentucky, when he was an outspoken Whig and Unionist, through his exploits as a colonel in the Civil War, to his political career before his appointment to the Court in 1877.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-273) and index.