For all of the legal and political contention surrounding affirmative action, one facet of the discussion is characterized by a curious, if implicit, consensus that spans all manner of ideological and partisan divisions.
Legal History
I thank Candace Jackson Gray for her help in researching census and tax records connected to Chief Justice Marshall’s slaveholding, and Charles F. Hobson, Tim Huebner, Alysa Landry, and R. Kent Newmyer for their many comments on early versions of this piece. I thank Harvard University Press for allowing me to reprint material in this essay that comes from my book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (Harvard 2018).
This is the second Essay in a two-part series exploring Chief Justice John Marshall’s private and public relationship to slavery.
I thank Candace Jackson Gray for her help in researching census and tax records connected to Marshall’s slaveholding, and Charles F. Hobson, Tim Huebner, Alysa Landry, and R. Kent Newmyer for their many comments on early versions of this piece.
This is the first of two Essays exploring Chief Justice John Marshall’s private and public relationship to slavery.
Thanks to James Oldham and Robin Kar for conversations about the fire courts.
Thanks to Patty Cushman, Neil Duxbury, Fred Konefsky, Caleb Nelson, J. Henry Schlegel, and G. Edward White for helpful comments and conversation.
The research for and writing of this Review was done during my time as Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Mason Ladd Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Iowa. It is a pleasure to thank the University of Minnesota Law School and Law Library and the University of Iowa College of Law and Law Library for excellent research support. It is also a pleasure to thank Daniel Klerman and Robert Levy for comments on a draft of this Review.
I appreciate helpful conversations with Daniel Carpenter, Michele Dauber, John Ferejohn, George Fisher, Rich Ford, Lawrence Friedman, David Golove, Jill Hasday, Daniel Ho, Don Hornstein, Lewis Kornhauser, David Luban, Eric Muller, Hari Osofsky, Robert Tsai, and Barry Weingast, as well as feedback from workshop participants at Berkeley, Iowa, Oregon, NYU, North Carolina, Southwestern, and Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. David Kennedy provided extremely helpful written comments on an earlier version of this Article. I also benefited greatly from the research assistance of Mindy Jeng, Shivan Saran, Britt Grant, Mrinal Menon, Connor Raso, Brad Hansen, and Jennifer Liu, as well as the staff of the Stanford Law School Library. I am also grateful to the staff at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and the Harry S. Truman Library. All of these people should be secure in the knowledge that they are not responsible for any errors or omissions. This is dedicated to Mateo, Ria, and Lucy.
For helpful comments, thanks to participants in faculty workshops at the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Cincinnati College of Law, in a Vanderbilt Works-inProgress Lunch, in an International Legal Studies Roundtable on Foreign Affairs held at Vanderbilt University, and in a Foreign Relations Workshop held at Georgetown University Law Center. Thanks also to David Bederman, Brad Clark, Jacob Cogan, Larry Helfer, Eugene Kontorovich, Mike Ramsey, Larry Solum, Kevin Stack, and Carlos Vázquez. Carlee Hobbs, Christen Moore, and Katherine Poulus provided excellent research assistance.
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