Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Melvin I. Urofsky For a long time, scholars as well as in­ terested layfolk have been asking where they can find an index to the Journal. While some of the more recent issues have been indexed in various compendia, there has been no eas­ ily accessible means oflooking up articles and authors that appeared earlier in our history. I must confess that I have often mumbled about the lack ofan index when doing my own work. I “know” that someone wrote something about some person or issue, but after nearly twenty years as editor I have no idea when that partic­ ular article appeared. So you can imagine my (scholarly) joy when Joel Fishman, a law librarian and expert indexer, approached us to discuss com­ piling an index, going back to when we were the Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook in the 1970s. It is a well-done project, and I fully anticipate that people who for whatever reason are trying to find some­ thing in the back issues will greet it with the same pleasure I did. The index is also avail­ able on the Society’s website at http://www. supremecourthistory.org/publications/, where it is fully searchable. Mark R. Killenbeck of the University of Arkansas Law School provides us some in­ sight on one ofthe most unusual exchanges of letters between a sitting Supreme Court Jus­ tice and the man who appointed him. Thomas Jefferson had never likedJohn Marshall’s lead­ ing the Court away from the earlier tradition of seriatim opinions, in which each judge wrote separately on each case, and he fumed even more when the men he and James Madison put on the Court to counter Marshall’s influ­ ence seemed to meekly fall into line. Although there had been serious discussion about the value ofseriatim versus opinions ofthe Court, this may have been one ofthe most fascinating exchanges, since it involveda former President and a sitting Justice. In his essay, John Orth of The University ofNorth Carolina atChapel Hill, notes that law students tend to fall asleep when the Eleventh Amendment is discussed in federal jurisdic­ tion classes. Well, I do not know if I actually fell asleep (I had a pretty good teacher for that course), but I must admit that the discussion was nowhere near as much fun as John makes it. Moreover, this may be the first time that the v vi JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY Journal has published a quasi-Science fiction piece with alternate universes. On many occasions I have noted that the field of constitutional history is a rather close-knit group, and this is even truer of its subset, the history of the Supreme Court. I count both Mark Killenbeck and John Orth as friends as well as colleagues, and I have known Barbara Perry since she was a graduate as­ sistant to another old friend, the great Henry Abrahams. Barbara is a formerjudicial fellow of the Court, and after a stint at Sweet Briar, has returned to the University of Virginia as a senior fellow at the Miller Center. We all know that the Constitution pro­ vides that the President shall nominate people to the judiciary, and we also know that when vacancies occur, especially on the high court, the President gets a great deal of advice— unwanted as well as wanted—from a lot of people as to whose name should go to the Senate for confirmation. It is not well-known, however, that at least since the early nineteenth century members of the Court have also ten­ dered their views to the Chief Executive on who should be their future colleagues, and how often these suggestions have borne fruit. While not an alternative universe, Barbara’s essay will also cause us to rethink some older assumptions. Finally, and as always, we welcome Grier Stephenson’s “Judicial Bookshelf” to inform us about some of the new books that have recently appeared dealing with the Supreme Court and its members. As I have said before, we sometimes tend to take the “Bookshelf” for granted because it is always timely, always perceptive, and always well-written. The fact that we assume so much about...