Happy Birthday, Hugo Black!
MarkD:
Hugo Black, Sr., was born Feb. 27, 1886 -- 136 years ago today.
At age 40, he was elected to the US Senate from the state of Alabama; he won a second term six years later.
At age 51, he was appointed to the US Supreme Court. He served on the Court for 34 years, one month; the fifth-longest-serving Justice in the Court's history so far.
I think of him as the best Supreme Court Justice of the last 85 years.
"Justice Black came to have significantly more respect for the limits of the Constitution than Justice Douglas or the other leading members of the Warren majorities ever showed." (Robert Bork, "The Tempting of America.")
"No Justice of the Court conscientiously and persistently endeavored, as much as Justice Black did, to establish consistent standards of objectivity for adjudicating constitutional questions." (James J. Magee, "Mr. Justice Black: Absolutism on the Supreme Court.")
"Although the Constitution requires all judges to swear to obey and enforce it, it is not altogether surprising that not all judges are dead set against whatever constitutional interpretations will expand their powers, and that when power is once claimed by some, others are loathe to give it up." (Hugo Black, quoted by Bernard Schwartz in "The Unpublished Opinions of the Warren Court.")
"The Chief [Earl Warren], [William] Brennan, Bill Douglas, Arthur [Goldberg], Thurgood [Marshall] are usually going to do the right thing. ... While they're around, we'll generally get a just judgment. But when they're gone and we get a [James] McReynolds type, he's free to let go with his bad sense of right and wrong. I believe we've got to tie the judges of this Court ... to something lasting, even if we've got to sacrifice doing some good through the federal courts. We don't want this Court to be like one of these agencies -- one law when the Republicans are in and another when the Democrats are in. This Court's got to have some enduring principles." (Hugo Black, Sr., quoted by Hugo Black, Jr., in "My Father; A Remembrance.")
A couple or three years ago, I posted a thread to commemorate the birthday of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and I ended up getting into arguments with certain other Atlas posters who took the position that Holmes should not be regarded as a great Supreme Court Justice, and the ONLY reason why he shouldn't be regarded as that was because of the opinion he wrote for the Court in Buck v. Bell. It's as if the only reason to regard any Justice as one of the best the Court has ever had is because they had a 100% perfect, flawless record of always coming to the right conclusions, 100% of the time. There is no such person who ever has or ever will be 100% perfect and 100% flawless. I do not agree with Hugo Black on 100% of his conclusions. In fact, I disagree with about a dozen of his conclusions, at least. Likewise, if I were a Supreme Court Justice, I wouldn't be perfect either, and I would make some mistakes from time to time.
But -- regarding Holmes and Black -- there is a difference between being PERFECT and being THE BEST among a crowd of inevitably imperfect people. The four quotes I posted above are among some of the reasons I think Hugo Black has been among the best Justices the Court has ever had, and is THE best of the last 85 years. I could also quote some excerpts from John Hart Ely's famous book, "Democracy and Distrust," but that would take too much space.
I have edited the Wikipedia article about Black to expand on readers' understanding of his "Jurisprudence." The first two quotes above were ones I added to the subsection of "Judicial Restraint" in the Wiki article; I added all of the short subsection called "Flexibility with Textualism and Originalism;" I added the second paragraph under the subsection "Voting Rights;" and I added most of what you will see under "Equal Protection Clause."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Black
MarkD:
137th Birthday today.
This time I'm going to discuss one of the most controversial aspects of Hugo Black's history: the fact that he had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
In Roger K. Newman's biography of Black, the author notes there were a few reasons why Hugo decided to join the KKK.
* One of his fellow lawyers told him that belonging to the Klan is a great way to get new clients
* He had some objections about the Catholic Church
* He was planning on running for the US Senate soon, and he wanted the Klan's endorsement in order to get enough votes to win
Black joined the Klan in 1923, resigned two years later, and then successfully ran for the Senate in 1926. The KKK had roughly 94,000 members during that period. Within 5 years after Black resigned, so did over 98% of its other registered members. By 1930, membership was down to only 1,500.
During the two years he belonged, he once threatened to quit (before he actually did).
Quote
Black could not have any illusions about the group he joined. Illegal Klan activities were part of daily life in Birmingham. Hugo had nothing to do with these. At one Konklave a resolution to whip a fellow was being debated. Black said, "This is a law-abiding organization and if you whip him, I leave the Klan." The resolution passed. "Consider me no longer a member," Hugo said. He put on his hat and walked out, but remained a member. (Hugo Black, A Biography, Newman, page 93.)
On more than one occasion after he joined the Supreme Court, one of his law clerks would ask, "Sir, why did you join the Klan?" That question was always extremely embarrassing to him, and he always paused before answering. But his reply was usually, "Son, if you wanted to get elected to the Senate in Alabama in the 1920's, you would've joined the Klan too." That was all he would say about it.
Vice President Christian Man:
Happy Belated birthday
MarkD:
138th birthday today.
I read somewhere -- I can't find the source now -- that as Justice Black was reading aloud the result of a certain case, and he heard a lot of groans and outcries from the audience, he sought to admonish the protesters by saying: "This court -- THIS court, this COURT -- is not allowed to make laws. We are here to interpret only."
I think it's a noble sentiment, but not completely realistic. He should have said "not supposed to," rather than "not allowed to." What do you people think of that statement?
politicallefty:
One of the truly greats that has served this country and our Constitution. To go from a member of the KKK to part of the unanimous Brown decision to the absolutist position in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education is something extraordinary.
Apart from that, I think his truly great decisions were:
-Everson v. Board of Education
-Engel v. Vitale
-Gideon v. Wainwright
-Wesberry v. Sanders
-McCollum v. Board of Education
His Establishment Clause jurisprudence remains second to no one.
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