Has there ever been two Supreme Court justices who were reported to hate each other?
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  Has there ever been two Supreme Court justices who were reported to hate each other?
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Author Topic: Has there ever been two Supreme Court justices who were reported to hate each other?  (Read 1717 times)
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« on: December 27, 2021, 08:20:46 PM »

We hear a lot about how they tend to all be friends and how even Scalia was actually on good terms personally with all the liberals and whatnot...but any reports to the contrary?
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Donerail
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« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2021, 08:26:02 PM »

Wikipedia: Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds
Quote
McReynolds was labeled "Scrooge" by journalist Drew Pearson. Chief Justice William Howard Taft thought him selfish, prejudiced, "and someone who seems to delight in making others uncomfortable ... [H]e has a continual grouch, and is always offended because the court is doing something that he regards as undignified." Taft also wrote that McReynolds was the most irresponsible member of the Court, and that "in the absence of McReynolds everything went smoothly."

Early on, his temperament affected his performance in the court. For example, he determined that John Clarke, another Wilson appointee to the court, was "too liberal" and refused to speak with him. Clarke decided to resign early from the court, and said that McReynolds's open antipathy was one factor. McReynolds refused to sign the customary joint memorial letter for Clarke, which was always given to departing members. In a letter, Taft commented that "[t]his is a fair sample of McReynolds's personal character and the difficulty of getting along with him."

Taft wrote that although he considered McReynolds an "able man", he found him to be "selfish to the last degree ... fuller of prejudice than any man I have ever known ... one who delights in making others uncomfortable. He has no sense of duty ... really seems to have less of a loyal spirit to the Court than anybody." In 1929 McReynolds asked Taft to announce opinions assigned to him (McReynolds), explaining that "an imperious voice has called me out of town. I don't think my sudden illness will prove fatal, but strange things some time happen around Thanksgiving." Duck hunting season had opened and McReynolds was off to Maryland for some shooting. In 1925, he left so suddenly on a similar errand that he had no opportunity to notify the Chief Justice of his departure. Taft was infuriated as two important decisions he wanted to deliver were delayed because McReynolds had not handed in a dissent before leaving.

Time "called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', and 'anti-Semitic'." McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish member of the Court, for three years following Brandeis's appointment. When Brandeis retired in 1939, McReynolds did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to justices on their retirement. He habitually left the conference room whenever Brandeis spoke.

When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was being pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined with fellow justices Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter in urging the White House not to "afflict the Court with another Jew". When news of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to have said "Huh, it seems that the only way you can get on the Supreme Court these days is to be either the son of a criminal or a Jew, or both." During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper. He often would hold a brief or record in front of his face when Cardozo delivered an opinion from the bench. Likewise, he refused to sign opinions authored by Brandeis.

According to John Frush Knox (1907–1997), McReynolds's law clerk for one term and one author of a memoir of his service, McReynolds never spoke to Cardozo at all. McReynolds did not attend the memorial ceremonies held at the Supreme Court in honor of Cardozo. He did not attend Felix Frankfurter's swearing-in, exclaiming "My God, another Jew on the Court!"

In 1922, Taft proposed that members of the Court accompany him to Philadelphia on a ceremonial occasion, but McReynolds refused to go, writing: "As you know, I am not always to be found when there is a Hebrew abroad. Therefore, my 'inability' to attend must not surprise you."

Once, when colleague Harlan Fiske Stone remarked to him about an attorney's brief: "That was the dullest argument I ever heard in my life," McReynolds replied: "The only duller thing I can think of is to hear you read one of your opinions."

Justices Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter transferred from the Chevy Chase club to Burning Tree because McReynolds "got disagreeable even beyond their endurance".

Knox wrote "in 1946 he [McReynolds] died a very lonely death in a hospital – without a single friend or relative at his bedside. He was buried in Kentucky, but no member of the Court attended his funeral though one employee of the Court traveled to Kentucky for the services."
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« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2021, 08:33:15 PM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.
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« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2021, 09:39:01 PM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

In addition to Frankfurter's hostility to Douglas and McReynolds's universal unpopularity with his colleagues, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Kagan can't stand Kavanaugh. Stephen Johnson Field in the late nineteenth century is also said to have been a widely disliked man.
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President Punxsutawney Phil
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« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2021, 09:45:40 PM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

In addition to Frankfurter's hostility to Douglas and McReynolds's universal unpopularity with his colleagues, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Kagan can't stand Kavanaugh. Stephen Johnson Field in the late nineteenth century is also said to have been a widely disliked man.
Stephen Johnson Field is a name I've never heard before. TIL.
Why would you say he was so unpopular?
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« Reply #5 on: December 28, 2021, 01:18:24 AM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

And he didn't even live to see Douglas try to single handedly end the Vietnam War.
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Fubart Solman
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« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2021, 01:58:46 AM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

Black also didn’t get along with Jackson (and vice-versa)
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #7 on: December 28, 2021, 03:25:55 PM »
« Edited: December 28, 2021, 07:07:01 PM by brucejoel99 »

As already alluded to up above, McReynolds is basically the Scrooge of the Court's history: nobody on the Court even came to his funeral, whereas the funeral of his Black messenger, Harry Parker, was attended by like 6 justices, including the Chief Justice. Needless to say, pretty much everybody on the Court hated his f**king guts, & not least because the contempt was not only very much mutual but at first impression too: he was such an anti-Semite that after Brandeis was confirmed to be the first Jewish justice, McReynolds would leave the conference room whenever it was Brandeis' turn to speak & even refused to allow the Court's picture to be taken one year since the seniority protocols dictated that he'd have to sit next to Brandeis. He proceeded to refuse to speak to Brandeis for the latter's first 3 years on the bench, & never once to Cardozo.

Frankfurter was also a mess of drama: not only was he one of the many justices who derided Douglas as sloppy & too motivated by his political ambitions, having written that "Douglas' crookery has a depth beyond plumbing. One has had to live with him for years to appreciate his shamelessness," but he himself was so hated that his departure actually precipitated a notable increase in civility on the Court. As long as he was on the Court, though, there were always rivalries on it, with Frankfurter being widely disliked, particularly by McReynolds & Black, because he talked down to his colleagues on the Court. Douglas also got in one "f**k you" at Frankfurter, infamously refusing to sign Frankfurter's retirement card, like how McReynolds had refused to sign Brandeis', just without the anti-Semitism.

Also, I don't think anybody who's ever worked with Burger could be said to be a fan of his. By all accounts, he was a jerk, plus such an incompetent Chief: he couldn't manage a conference to save his life & who'd blatantly change sides on a case just to control the opinion assignment. Stewart probably would've killed him himself had he stayed on the Court any longer.

Also, said justices were widely disliked by most of those with whom they served, even if it didn't extend to pure "hatred." Since Burger left, though, there haven't been any publicly revealed personal feuds between the justices, with seemingly all of the justices being very emphatic that everybody on the Court works to gets along with one another in spite of any ideological differences, which is frankly remarkable, given the lack of civility in the Taft/Hughes/Stone/Vinson/Warren eras.


Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

Black also didn’t get along with Jackson (and vice-versa)

Getting to avoid Black was apparently one of the primary reasons that Jackson accepted the offer to prosecute at Nuremberg, & both of them said that they would immediately retire if the other were to ever be promoted to Chief.
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« Reply #8 on: December 28, 2021, 03:38:23 PM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

In addition to Frankfurter's hostility to Douglas and McReynolds's universal unpopularity with his colleagues, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Kagan can't stand Kavanaugh. Stephen Johnson Field in the late nineteenth century is also said to have been a widely disliked man.
Stephen Johnson Field is a name I've never heard before. TIL.

He's best known for his role in the early development of the substantive due process concept, which of course at that time was mostly used to strike down business regulations before twentieth-century Court majorities repurposed it as a tool for expanding privacy rights.

Quote
Why would you say he was so unpopular?

Political overambitiousness, mostly. The sources I've read on him are clear that he was not a well-liked man but less clear as to exactly why not.
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Donerail
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« Reply #9 on: December 28, 2021, 04:47:26 PM »

Stephen Johnson Field in the late nineteenth century is also said to have been a widely disliked man.
Currently working on an article about Justice Field — notably, one of his bodyguards shot and killed his predecessor as Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, who was allegedly about to stab him to death. Fascinating figure.
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David Hume
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« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2021, 12:47:09 AM »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

In addition to Frankfurter's hostility to Douglas and McReynolds's universal unpopularity with his colleagues, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Kagan can't stand Kavanaugh. Stephen Johnson Field in the late nineteenth century is also said to have been a widely disliked man.
Source?

I have the impression that Kagan is trying to be friend with Kavanaugh in order to get him "evolve".
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David Hume
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« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2021, 12:52:38 AM »
« Edited: December 29, 2021, 03:46:31 PM by David Hume »

As already alluded to up above, McReynolds is basically the Scrooge of the Court's history: nobody on the Court even came to his funeral, whereas the funeral of his Black messenger, Harry Parker, was attended by like 6 justices, including the Chief Justice. Needless to say, pretty much everybody on the Court hated his f**king guts, & not least because the contempt was not only very much mutual but at first impression too: he was such an anti-Semite that after Brandeis was confirmed to be the first Jewish justice, McReynolds would leave the conference room whenever it was Brandeis' turn to speak & even refused to allow the Court's picture to be taken one year since the seniority protocols dictated that he'd have to sit next to Brandeis. He proceeded to refuse to speak to Brandeis for the latter's first 3 years on the bench, & never once to Cardozo.

Frankfurter was also a mess of drama: not only was he one of the many justices who derided Douglas as sloppy & too motivated by his political ambitions, having written that "Douglas' crookery has a depth beyond plumbing. One has had to live with him for years to appreciate his shamelessness," but he himself was so hated that his departure actually precipitated a notable increase in civility on the Court. As long as he was on the Court, though, there were always rivalries on it, with Frankfurter being widely disliked, particularly by McReynolds & Black, because he talked down to his colleagues on the Court. Douglas also got in one "f**k you" at Frankfurter, infamously refusing to sign Frankfurter's retirement card, like how McReynolds had refused to sign Brandeis', just without the anti-Semitism.

Also, I don't think anybody who's ever worked with Burger could be said to be a fan of his. By all accounts, he was a jerk, plus such an incompetent Chief: he couldn't manage a conference to save his life & who'd blatantly change sides on a case just to control the opinion assignment. Stewart probably would've killed him himself had he stayed on the Court any longer.


To my knowledge Rehnquist and O'Connor were friendly with Burger. I assume White as well, since Burger recommend him to be his successor as Chief Justice.
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« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2021, 12:58:31 AM »


Also, said justices were widely disliked by most of those with whom they served, even if it didn't extend to pure "hatred." Since Burger left, though, there haven't been any publicly revealed personal feuds between the justices, with seemingly all of the justices being very emphatic that everybody on the Court works to gets along with one another in spite of any ideological differences, which is frankly remarkable, given the lack of civility in the Taft/Hughes/Stone/Vinson/Warren eras.


O'Connor dislikes Scalia and Thomas. Her hate towards Scalia is understandable, as Scalia publicly wrote her opinion "cannot be taken seriously". Her hate towards Thomas is... To my knowledge, Thomas is very gentle and easygoing, and even liberal clerks like him personally.
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brucejoel99
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« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2021, 12:40:45 PM »

Also, said justices were widely disliked by most of those with whom they served, even if it didn't extend to pure "hatred." Since Burger left, though, there haven't been any publicly revealed personal feuds between the justices, with seemingly all of the justices being very emphatic that everybody on the Court works to gets along with one another in spite of any ideological differences, which is frankly remarkable, given the lack of civility in the Taft/Hughes/Stone/Vinson/Warren eras.

O'Connor dislikes Scalia and Thomas. Her hate towards Scalia is understandable, as Scalia publicly wrote her opinion "cannot be taken seriously". Her hate towards Thomas is... To my knowledge, Thomas is very gentle and easygoing, and even liberal clerks like him personally.

She disliked their ideological purity, but not necessarily themselves personally, at least according to all of the relevant Toobin books on the matter. If anything, the justice she ever disliked the most was the one whom she never had to serve with: her successor, Alito, whose rigid ideological beliefs were truly revolting to O'Connor, even moreso than Scalia & Thomas', though granted, she'd served with them longer & so had a longer amount of time to become friendly with them.
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« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2021, 03:34:52 PM »
« Edited: December 29, 2021, 03:38:37 PM by Mr. MANDELA BARNES »

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

Black also didn’t get along with Jackson (and vice-versa)

You know that's not true  it was a class video and Earl Warren told them in uniform that Segregation in Schools shouldn't be allowed, 9/0 vote unanimois verdict and Black, Douglas, Burton, Frankfurter, Jackson, Warren  were on the Left side while Reed, Clark and Sherman Minton we're on the right side, but still unanimous

Vinson was the only one that said Jefferson didn't write it in the Bill of Rights that Blks should be free irregardless of 13,14,15 th Amendment then Segregation should stand

They respected each other and Federick M Vinson died so Warren can be appointment
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MarkD
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« Reply #15 on: December 30, 2021, 01:58:45 PM »
« Edited: January 01, 2022, 10:43:22 AM by MarkD »

This one is going to be long.

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.
I believe MarkD has pointed out that in Frankfurter's memoirs he calls Douglas one of only two genuinely evil men he had ever met, the other being some private citizen or other whom Frankfurter grants the dignity of namelessness.

I’m impressed, Nathan! I’m pleased you remember that from a post of mine from a little over a year and a half ago.

First, I’ll address Black v. Frankfurter and Black v. Jackson.

Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter had long and intense arguments with one another - both behind the scenes within the Court and in “public,” with their written opinions - about judicial philosophy and the meaning of certain parts of the Constitution. But those were only intellectual arguments, and they were not indications of personal hatred. Behind the scenes, they got along with each other very well, and they respected each other’s intelligence a great deal. They both referred to one another as one of the smartest members of the Court.

Yes, at one point in the mid-1940’s, Black and Robert Jackson had a very nasty feud with each other, and that feud was leaked into the press. It proved to be very embarrassing to the Court as a whole, and even President Truman commented that the Court was turning itself into a mess (or so I remember reading somewhere). But the feud did not last long, and after passions and tempers were spent, they resumed a cordial relationship with one another.

The best answer to give to the OP is that the hatred between William O. Douglas and Felix Frankfurter was the most intense and longest-lasting hatred that has probably ever occurred between any two Justices who served together. Their feud with each other started almost immediately, the first year they served together on the Court, and it lasted almost fully 23 years until Frankfurter retired. Both Frankfurter and Douglas came onto the Court with no prior experience as judges, but they had both been law school professors. Frankfurter spent about 25 years teaching at Harvard, whereas Douglas taught at Columbia for one year, and at Yale for several years. Before their appointment in 1939, they knew about each other, probably, by reputation alone, and what they knew of each other, they respected a whole lot. Almost everything I’m going to quote below comes from pages 90-93 of a book called Of Power and Right (OPAR), published in 1992. The authors, Howard Ball and Phillip J. Cooper, documented almost every single quote they used in the book, and I’m going to include the sources that they documented as I quote those authors.

First of all, the differences of opinion about judicial philosophy and interpretations of the Constitution that Black and Frankfurter had with one another also carried over into the disagreements between Douglas and Frankfurter. “But the origin of Douglas’s and Frankfurter’s deep-seated animosity went beyond important jurisprudential differences. Temperamentally, they were opposites. From the beginning of their close association as justices, the two men simply grated on each other’s nerves. … Beneath it all, there was a ‘real personal antagonism.’ (Super Chief, by Bernard Schwartz, p. 53) … Their mutual dislike was so bitter that for extended periods of time the two men did not speak to each other. (Mr. Justice and Mrs. Black, Hugo L. Black and Elizabeth Black, p.102) … Although in 1974 Douglas claimed that there had been no ‘war’ between him and Frankfurter (letter by Douglas to Michael E. Parrish, dated Dec. 16, 1974, from Douglas’s private papers), the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Frankfurter and Douglas, two important American jurists whose decades-long bitter debates (indeed, whose ‘wars’) contributed a great deal to our understanding of constitutionalism in a modern democratic society, could not tolerate each other. Intentionally and unintentionally, they went out of their way to harass each other for over two decades.” (OPAR)

The animosity began the first year they were together on the Court. The Court had a case called Board of Commissioners v. United States, and at the first conference of the justices, they voted 8 to 1 how to resolve that dispute. Black was the only dissenter, and Frankfurter started writing the majority opinion. But Douglas decided, before long, to switch his vote and join the dissent by Black. Frankfurter asked him why he changed his mind, and the only answer Douglas gave was that he didn’t think Black should be all alone. That response made Frankfurter furious, and he told his law clerk that Douglas was an “absolute cynic.” (The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection, Bruce Allen Murphy, p. 265) Eventually Frankfurter declared that Douglas was one of “two completely evil men I have ever met.” (No source.) In 1954, Frankfurter wrote to Judge Learned Hand that Douglas was “the most cynical, shameless, immoral character I’ve ever known.” (Schwartz, ibid)

Just as Frankfurter thought of Douglas as evil, Douglas likewise thought that Frankfurter was arrogant and condescending. “He was one of the most arrogant men Douglas had ever met, and this after a career on Wall Street and dealing with corporate lawyers.” (OPAR) Condescending? Early on, Frankfurter wrote a memo to Douglas to critique an opinion that Douglas had recently written, and the memo began, “I must say it is bad for the both of us that we are no longer professors. Because if you were still a professor, you would have written a different elaboration and if I were still a professor, I would get several lectures out of what you have written.” (Memo from FF to WOD, dated Dec. 2, 1941, in Frankfurter’s private papers.) Among reasons that Douglas hated Frankfurter was that the latter so often took too much time explaining his views during conference sessions of the Court (i.e., when the Court would deliberate in its private chamber like a jury). As Justice Potter Stewart recalled, “Felix, if he was really interested in a case, would speak for fifty minutes, no more or less, because that was the length of the lecture at the Harvard Law School.” (Schwartz, ibid, p. 39) To Douglas, what was worse than just the length of Felix’s lectures was also how else he would behave. “Frankfurter indulged in histrionics in Conference. He often came in with piles of books, and on his turn to talk, would pound the table, read from the books, throw them around and create a great disturbance. … At times, when another was talking, he would break in, make a derisive comment and shout down the speaker.” (Court Years, Douglas, p. 22) Douglas said that Frankfurter had always been “divisive”: “At Harvard. On the Court. He liked to see people argue. He was Machievellian.” (Independent Journey: the Life of William O. Douglas, James F. Simon, p.9) Justice Stewart shared the story that, on at least one occasion, after one of Frankfurter’s fifty minute lectures, “Bill would say in a quiet voice: ‘When I came into this conference, I agreed with the conclusion that Felix had just announced; but he’s just talked me out of it’ – which used to drive Felix Frankfurter crazy.” (Schwartz, ibid, p.53)

Among the reasons Frankfurter hated Douglas was that the latter would often go to the Democratic National Conventions and seek to get himself placed in nomination for Vice-President or even for President. It happened at least in 1944, 1948, and 1952, and it always made Frankfurter angry. Although I haven’t seen any evidence that the two men discussed that issue, I can easily imagine how a conversation between them would go:

Frankfurter: You should resign from the Court, immediately. I don’t mean that you should wait to find out if you get nominated and then resign. Since you are campaigning for national office right now, you have a duty to resign right now.
Douglas: Why do I have any less of a right to run for national office than, say, Charles Evans Hughes?
Frankfurter: That example proves my point: Hughes did not go to the 1916 Republican National Convention seeking to run for President. He didn’t attend that convention at all. The party nominated him in absentia, because they thought he could re-unite the factions that had split between Taft and Roosevelt, and because they believed his career in office would make him an outstanding President of the United States. Once he received word that he had been nominated, he sent the convention a telegram saying that, although he hadn’t sought to be nominated, he accepted the nomination, and he resigned from the Court. You are nothing like Hughes. You’re running for office in a way that Hughes did not. Hughes, while serving as a member of the Court, did not harbor political ambitions; you do. That’s disgraceful.
Douglas: Oh, golly gee! How awful it is to have ambition! That’s totally un-American, isn’t it?
Frankfurter: It’s not un-American, but for a sitting judge with judicial responsibilities, it’s injudicious.
Douglas: Even if a comparison between myself and Hughes doesn’t exactly match, there have been previous members of the Court who ran for national office the way I am. Back in the Nineteenth Century, John McLean did it more than once, as did Stephen Field. I’m no worse than them.
Frankfurter: They were as wrong then as you are now. Three wrongs do not make a right.

(Again, I’m not saying that’s the conversation they actually had, but I imagine it could have occurred that way.)

In 1954, Douglas wrote a memo that he sent to Frankfurter which said, “Today at Conference I asked you a question concerning [a memorandum opinion Frankfurter had written]. The question was not answered. An answer was refused, rather insolently. This was so far as I recall the first time one member of the Conference refused to answer another member on a matter of Court business. We all know what a great burden your long discourses are. So I am not complaining. But I do register a protest at your degradation of the Conference and its deliberations.” (memo from WOD to FF, dated May 29, 1954, Douglas’s private papers) Six years later, Douglas drafted a memo to all his colleagues -- which ultimately was not sent – in which he said he would no longer attend conference sessions because of

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the continuous violent outbursts against me … by my Brother Frankfurter. [They] give me great concern. They do not bother me. For I have been on the hustings for too long. But he’s an ill man; and these violent outbursts create a fear in my heart that one of them may be his end. I do not consciously do anything to annoy him. But twenty-odd years have shown that I am a disturbing symbol in his life. His outbursts against me are increasing in intensity. In the interest of his health and long life I have reluctantly concluded to participate in no more conferences while he is on the Court. (Memo by Douglas dated Nov. 21, 1960, Douglas’s private papers.)(Authors Ball and Cooper speculate that it was probably Chief Justice Warren who persuaded Douglas not to send that memo to the Brethren.)

Douglas was the only member of the Court who did not attend Frankfurter's funeral in 1965. (Simon, ibid, p.217; Black and Black, ibid - "we arrived at 3:00. All the Court except Bill and Joanie Douglas were there.")

About a year and a half ago, when I posted a long comment about Justice Douglas on another board, I said that I think of him as a preening, pretentious hypocrite. What do you think about him saying “I do not consciously do anything to annoy [Frankfurter]”? In the 1974 letter that he sent to Michael Parrish, he said, “One would err greatly to conclude that Frankfurter and I were at war. We clashed often at the idiological [sic] level but our personal relations were excellent and I always enjoyed being with him.” Yeah, right.

Again, the winner for the worst case of mutual hatred that lasted the longest was, hands down, between Douglas and Frankfurter.
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« Reply #16 on: December 30, 2021, 08:53:19 PM »
« Edited: December 30, 2021, 09:04:52 PM by Mr. MANDELA BARNES »

The interpretations of the Constitution didn't mean much when they all unanimously agreed that Blks should be Desegregated from Schools it was Unanimous Douglas, Black, Frankfurter, Warren, Jackson on the Left side and the Four Horsemen Burton, Reed, Clark and Minton on the right side it would of been 5/4 against Desegregation if Vinson had lived Reed was the swing vote

Jackson, Reed were Solicitor Generals to FDR, Black was Senator and Frankfurter was Advisor to FDR just like Joe Kennedy was advised to FDR

The Democratic party was changing from the Dixiecrats to the Secular party during the Cold War era and Civil Rights were front and center.

That's why Jews United with Blks because in the South before 1955 if you couldn't afford an Attorney poor Jews, Latinos and Blks we're sent to Chain Gangs by Dixiecrat judges due to whistling at WC females
.

Until 1965 when we had Miranda and Public Defender Laws


I think that back during the Civil War Days that the Rs didn't care much about the Dixiecrats due to Slavery and Segregation it was Melvin Fuller that allowed Plessy v Ferguson Separate but Equal Laws, Apartheid


Jefferson and Madison weren't justices but they despised Judicial Review that Marshall set precedent to that made Federal Law Supreme and states rights inferior Emancipation proclamation freed the slaves and that's the tip of the iceberg of how the Congress abd SCOTUS WERE DIVIDED DURING SLAVERY

Frederick Vinson quoted Jefferson in his deference to states rights in not Desegregated Schools and Reed was his pal because both were from KY if Jefferson didn't write it in the Bill of Rights Blks weren't meant to be free


The same logic they use for Voter Suppression deference to states rights if it's not in the Bill of Rights


Lastly, in that video Frankfurter, Douglas, Jackson didn't deference to states rights when Vinson quoted Jefferson, Black stood bye and watched and Reed  and Clark agreed with Vinson
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MarkD
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« Reply #17 on: January 13, 2022, 06:58:13 AM »
« Edited: January 13, 2022, 02:32:07 PM by MarkD »

Reposting this, but taking out some extraneous material, and adding one quote that wasn't there before.

Frankfurter really didn't like the more liberal on the court, particularly Douglas and Black, but also Warren.

First, I’ll address Black v. Frankfurter.

Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter had long and intense arguments with one another - both behind the scenes within the Court and in “public,” with their written opinions - about judicial philosophy and the meaning of certain parts of the Constitution. But those were only intellectual arguments, and they were not indications of personal hatred. Behind the scenes, they got along with each other very well, and they respected each other’s intelligence a great deal. They both referred to one another as one of the smartest members of the Court.

The best answer to give to the OP is that the hatred between William O. Douglas and Felix Frankfurter was the most intense and longest-lasting hatred that has probably ever occurred between any two Justices who served together. Their feud with each other started almost immediately, the first year they served together on the Court, and it lasted almost fully 23 years until Frankfurter retired. Both Frankfurter and Douglas came onto the Court with no prior experience as judges, but they had both been law school professors. Frankfurter spent about 25 years teaching at Harvard, whereas Douglas taught at Columbia for one year, and at Yale for several years. Before their appointment in 1939, they knew about each other, probably, by reputation alone, and what they knew of each other, they respected a whole lot. Almost everything I’m going to quote below comes from pages 90-93 of a book called Of Power and Right (OPAR), published in 1992. The authors, Howard Ball and Phillip J. Cooper, documented almost every single quote they used in the book, and I’m going to include the sources that they documented as I quote those authors.

First of all, the differences of opinion about judicial philosophy and interpretations of the Constitution that Black and Frankfurter had with one another also carried over into the disagreements between Douglas and Frankfurter. “But the origin of Douglas’s and Frankfurter’s deep-seated animosity went beyond important jurisprudential differences. Temperamentally, they were opposites. From the beginning of their close association as justices, the two men simply grated on each other’s nerves. … Beneath it all, there was a ‘real personal antagonism.’ (Super Chief, by Bernard Schwartz, p. 53) … Their mutual dislike was so bitter that for extended periods of time the two men did not speak to each other. (Mr. Justice and Mrs. Black, Hugo L. Black and Elizabeth Black, p.102) … Although in 1974 Douglas claimed that there had been no ‘war’ between him and Frankfurter (letter by Douglas to Michael E. Parrish, dated Dec. 16, 1974, from Douglas’s private papers), the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. Frankfurter and Douglas, two important American jurists whose decades-long bitter debates (indeed, whose ‘wars’) contributed a great deal to our understanding of constitutionalism in a modern democratic society, could not tolerate each other. Intentionally and unintentionally, they went out of their way to harass each other for over two decades.” (OPAR)

The animosity began the first year they were together on the Court. The Court had a case called Board of Commissioners v. United States, and at the first conference of the justices, they voted 8 to 1 how to resolve that dispute. Black was the only dissenter, and Frankfurter started writing the majority opinion. But Douglas decided, before long, to switch his vote and join the dissent by Black. Frankfurter asked him why he changed his mind, and the only answer Douglas gave was that he didn’t think Black should be all alone. That response made Frankfurter furious, and he told his law clerk that Douglas was an “absolute cynic.” (The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection, Bruce Allen Murphy, p. 265) Eventually Frankfurter declared that Douglas was one of “two completely evil men I have ever met.” (No source.) In 1954, Frankfurter wrote to Judge Learned Hand that Douglas was “the most cynical, shameless, immoral character I’ve ever known.” (Schwartz, ibid)

Just as Frankfurter thought of Douglas as evil, Douglas likewise thought that Frankfurter was arrogant and condescending. “He was one of the most arrogant men Douglas had ever met, and this after a career on Wall Street and dealing with corporate lawyers.” (OPAR) Condescending? Early on, Frankfurter wrote a memo to Douglas to critique an opinion that Douglas had recently written, and the memo began, “I must say it is bad for the both of us that we are no longer professors. Because if you were still a professor, you would have written a different elaboration and if I were still a professor, I would get several lectures out of what you have written.” (Memo from FF to WOD, dated Dec. 2, 1941, in Frankfurter’s private papers.) Among reasons that Douglas hated Frankfurter was that the latter so often took too much time explaining his views during conference sessions of the Court (i.e., when the Court would deliberate in its private chamber like a jury). As Justice Potter Stewart recalled, “Felix, if he was really interested in a case, would speak for fifty minutes, no more or less, because that was the length of the lecture at the Harvard Law School.” (Schwartz, ibid, p. 39) To Douglas, what was worse than just the length of Felix’s lectures was also how else he would behave. “Frankfurter indulged in histrionics in Conference. He often came in with piles of books, and on his turn to talk, would pound the table, read from the books, throw them around and create a great disturbance. … At times, when another was talking, he would break in, make a derisive comment and shout down the speaker.” (Court Years, Douglas, p. 22) Douglas said that Frankfurter had always been “divisive”: “At Harvard. On the Court. He liked to see people argue. He was Machievellian.” (Independent Journey: the Life of William O. Douglas, James F. Simon, p.9) Justice Stewart shared the story that, on at least one occasion, after one of Frankfurter’s fifty minute lectures, “Bill would say in a quiet voice: ‘When I came into this conference, I agreed with the conclusion that Felix had just announced; but he’s just talked me out of it’ – which used to drive Felix Frankfurter crazy.” (Schwartz, ibid, p.53)

Among the reasons Frankfurter hated Douglas was that the latter would often go to the Democratic National Conventions and seek to get himself placed in nomination for Vice-President or even for President. It happened at least in 1944, 1948, and 1952, and it always made Frankfurter angry. At one point, Frankfurter said to Justice Frank Murphy, "Doesn't [it] shock you to have this Court made a jumping off place for politics?" (From the Diaries of Felix Frankfurter, Joseph P. Lash, p. 155.)

In 1954, Douglas wrote a memo that he sent to Frankfurter which said, “Today at Conference I asked you a question concerning [a memorandum opinion Frankfurter had written]. The question was not answered. An answer was refused, rather insolently. This was so far as I recall the first time one member of the Conference refused to answer another member on a matter of Court business. We all know what a great burden your long discourses are. So I am not complaining. But I do register a protest at your degradation of the Conference and its deliberations.” (memo from WOD to FF, dated May 29, 1954, Douglas’s private papers) Six years later, Douglas drafted a memo to all his colleagues -- which ultimately was not sent – in which he said he would no longer attend conference sessions because of

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the continuous violent outbursts against me … by my Brother Frankfurter. [They] give me great concern. They do not bother me. For I have been on the hustings for too long. But he’s an ill man; and these violent outbursts create a fear in my heart that one of them may be his end. I do not consciously do anything to annoy him. But twenty-odd years have shown that I am a disturbing symbol in his life. His outbursts against me are increasing in intensity. In the interest of his health and long life I have reluctantly concluded to participate in no more conferences while he is on the Court. (Memo by Douglas dated Nov. 21, 1960, Douglas’s private papers.)(Authors Ball and Cooper speculate that it was probably Chief Justice Warren who persuaded Douglas not to send that memo to the Brethren.)

Douglas was the only member of the Court who did not attend Frankfurter's funeral in 1965. (Simon, ibid, p.217; Black and Black, ibid - "we arrived at 3:00. All the Court except Bill and Joanie Douglas were there.")

Again, the winner for the worst case of mutual hatred that lasted the longest was, hands down, between Douglas and Frankfurter.

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Calthrina950
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« Reply #18 on: January 13, 2022, 07:50:54 PM »

What about the current Supreme Court? What has been rumored about the relationships between, say, Trump's appointees and their colleagues?
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Senator Incitatus
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« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2022, 10:03:06 AM »
« Edited: January 14, 2022, 10:09:41 AM by RoboWop »

Stephen Johnson Field is a name I've never heard before. TIL.

He's best known for his role in the early development of the substantive due process concept, which of course at that time was mostly used to strike down business regulations before twentieth-century Court majorities repurposed it as a tool for expanding privacy rights.

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Why would you say he was so unpopular?

Political overambitiousness, mostly. The sources I've read on him are clear that he was not a well-liked man but less clear as to exactly why not.

I haven't heard that Field was deeply disliked on a personal level, though he was ambitious of the presidency. He was primarily disliked for remaining on the Court long past his expiry date in order to set the record for longest-serving Justice. This resulted in him becoming quite senile in his final days on the bench and obstructing a great deal of Court business.
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2022, 11:06:33 PM »

What about the current Supreme Court? What has been rumored about the relationships between, say, Trump's appointees and their colleagues?

I can't imagine the relationships between Sotomayor and at least some of her conservative colleagues are "great."
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All Along The Watchtower
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« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2022, 11:08:08 PM »

And yeah, Warren Burger was detested by many of his colleagues, as Bob Woodward clearly outlined in The Brethren.
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Calthrina950
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« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2022, 11:20:38 PM »

What about the current Supreme Court? What has been rumored about the relationships between, say, Trump's appointees and their colleagues?

I can't imagine the relationships between Sotomayor and at least some of her conservative colleagues are "great."

Probably not. I've read that the late Justice Scalia apparently didn't care for Sotomayor, but had a great respect for Kagan, despite their ideological disagreements.
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Ferguson97
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« Reply #23 on: January 18, 2022, 02:26:01 PM »

I cannot imagine that Sotomayor or Kagan are fond of Kavanaugh...
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Donerail
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« Reply #24 on: January 18, 2022, 02:38:43 PM »

I cannot imagine that Sotomayor or Kagan are fond of Kavanaugh...
Not sure why you'd think that's the case; Kagan in particular seems friendly w/ him. The correct answer here — sizing up the current court, especially given today's news — is Sotomayor-Gorsuch.
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