Introduction

Abstract

Introduction Melvin I. Urofsky Chairman, Board of Editors This issue of the Journal again displays the infinite variety of threads that make up the tapestry of Supreme Court history. Once more I ponder how much the study of our third branch of government has changed since I was a graduate student, or even a law stu­ dent two decades later. Back in the 1960s, “constitutional history” essentially meant the study of “great cases,” and, while these cases were handed down by Justices who sat on the Supreme Court of the United States, one did not examine either the Justices’ jurispruden­ tial philosophy or the institutional workings of the Court. There were only a few judicial biographies available, and only Alpheus T. Mason’s book on Harlan Fiske Stone really examined the Court’s inner workings. As for the cases themselves, not until Anthony Lewis published Gideon’s Trumpet in 1964 did we begin to look past the actual holdings of the cases to the people involved and their stories. In this issue we get a taste of the wide range of work now being written about the Court, its members, and its decisions. Linda Przybyszewski, who last year gave us The Republic According to John Marshall Har­ lan, is now at work on a study of religious thought and the judiciary in the late nine­ teenth century, and her examination of Justice David J. Brewer tells us much about the Court and the cultural context in which it op­ erated. Along the lines of looking at the real people behind the cases, Ronald B. Flowers examines the Macintosh case, which, al­ though famous in its time, is less well known than some of the other decisions on citizen­ ship and pacifism. Douglas Clyde Macintosh will strike many people as a good man, and lead us to wonder at the strangeness of laws that kept him from becoming an American citizen. We sometimes forget that before men and women become Justices, they must be ap­ pointed by a President, who will often have his own agenda. Calvin Coolidge, whose term in office is noted primarily for his effort not to do anything, apparently did have some ideas about the type of men he wanted on the na­ tion’s high court. As Russell Fowler shows in v vi JOURNAL OF SUPREME COURT HISTORY these pages, Coolidge named some very inter­ esting people to the Bench. Interest in the Cherokee cases continues unabated, and Associate Justice Stephen Breyer chose them as the topic for the Soci­ ety’s Annual Lecture, which he delivered in June. We also get a glimpse of some internal issues that the Court and its members must occasionally face in the article by Artemus Ward on William O. Douglas’s retirement. The 1999 Hughes-Gossett student essay prize was awarded to Professor Ward, who was then a doctoral student at Syracuse Univer­ sity. And finally, if anyone doubts the wide-ranging nature of current scholarship on the Court, our regular book reviewer, D. Grier Stephenson, Jr., leads us through the current crop of studies. All told, this is another rich feast, and no one can complain about this type of food for thought. ...