Justice John Marshall Harlan and the "Color-Blind Constitution"

Abstract

Mr. Justice Harlan was the "Great Dissenter" to the complacent attitudes of The Gilded Age. His opinions ran against the attitudes held by his contemporaries: laissez-fair in economics; imperialism in international relations, and subjugation of the Negro. Although once considered the equal and precursor of Oliver Wendell Holmes, he has been largely forgotten. Yet his views toward the Negro, civil rights, powers of Congress, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments have come to be exonerated today, not those of his contemporaries. For these reasons we must look again at the life and judicial opinions of Justice Harlan, not as a resurrection of a dead figure, but as a reconsideration of a vital figure in the Supreme Court. His role as the "Great Dissenter" was an essential one, keeping alive the liberal, independent spirit that would be carried on by Justices Holmes and Brandeis. [From Preface]