The Story-Holmes Seat Harry A. Blackmun Editor’s Note: Justice Blackmun delivered thispaper as the Society’ s 1996Annual Lecture in June. This Society—the Supreme Court Historical Society—was founded in 1974, largely through the guidance ofChiefJustice Warren Earl Burger. The former Chief had a certain sense of history and had noted that historical societies already were functioning within the other two branches. The Chiefaddressed the FirstAnnual Meeting of this Society in 1976. And now, time has moved on so that we have gathered for the Twenty-first Annual Meeting. When President Leon Silverman called, I was hesitant. After all, you already have had those twenty Annual Meetings and nineteen Annual Lectures that have served to benefit the Court. A review of the subjects of those lectures and the list of those who delivered them discloses that much ground has been covered. The list includes persons of notable stature in the field ofAmeri can constitutional law: Richard Morris, Benno Schmidt, Maxwell Bloomfield, George Haskins, Henry Abraham, Robert Bork, William Leuchtenburg, Daniel Meador, Kenneth Starr, Liva Baker, and Herbert Brownell. Depending upon how one counts, Chief Justice Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia even have twice assumed the lectureship responsibility and no fewer than three other Justices ofthe Supreme Court, Lewis E Powell, Jr., Sandra Day O’Connor, andAnthony Kennedy, have stood at this podium for the An nual Lecture. Last year, ProfessorGerald Gunther spoke ofLearned Hand,1 one ofthe greatAmeri canjurists and lawyers who, like Erwin Griswold and Augustus Hand, did not gain appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States. Then, in 1994, the preceding year, Justice Scalia pre sented his essay on the value of dissenting and concurring opinions.2 And now I am asked to join the group after all those predecessors! So much, therefore, has been offered that one ap propriately may ask, almost with a whimper, “What is there left?” I The late Erwin N. Griswold, long-time dean of Harvard Law School and thereafter Solicitor General of the United States, described the seat on the Supreme Court occupied by Justice Jo seph P. Story for thirty-three years (1812-1845) and by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., for twentynine years (1902-1932) as a “distinguished” one? That, ofcourse, is a matter ofopinion and may or may not prove to be correct as history unfolds. It cannot be denied, however, that, 12 STORY-HOLMES SEAT through 1969, it has been occupied by a number of figures renowned in American law and in the annals of the Court. Its lineage begins with §1 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 73, when Congress created the Court to consist of a Chief Justice and five Associate Justices. II Until the present day, thirteen persons, every one a male, have occupied that seat. Here are the names of the eleven who have held the place successively from 1790 to 1969, the year I nec essarily have selected as the termination date of this review: William Cushing of Massachusetts Joseph P. Story of Massachusetts Levi Woodbury of New Hampshire Benjamin R. Curtis of Massachusetts Nathan Clifford of Maine Horace Gray of Massachusetts Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., of Massachusetts Benjamin N. Cardozo of New York Felix Frankfurter of Massachusetts Arthur J. Goldberg of Illinois Abe Fortas of Tennessee For a time, the place was regarded as the “New England” seat, for, as the list discloses, until Justice Cardozo ofNew York took office in 1932, every occupant was from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine. Indeed, of the en tire thirteen, a majority have been from Mas sachusetts alone. Then, there was a time when some considered it to be the “Jewish” seat, occupied successively by four members of that faith. Fortunately, these descriptions of small significance have faded away. Yet the promi nence ofthe occupants ofthe seat during the 179 years from 1790 to 1969 cannot lightly be disre garded. It is a feature that tends to make any new appointee to that chair apprehensive and humble. Does he feel himself up to that tradi tion of strength and toughness? What is there about the successive names of Cushing all the way through Fortas that creates this degree of apprehension...