# John Marshall Harlan *Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1877–1911* John Marshall Harlan (June 1, 1833 – October 14, 1911) was an American lawyer and politician. He sat as an associate justice of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] from 1877 until his death in 1911.[^1] He wrote many dissents in cases that restricted civil liberties, among them the Civil Rights Cases, *Plessy v. Ferguson* and *Giles v. Harris*, and they earned him the name "The Great Dissenter". Many of the views he set out in those dissents became the Court's own position, beginning with the Warren Court of the 1950s.[^1] Harlan came from a prominent slaveholding family near Danville, Kentucky. He backed the Union in the Civil War and recruited the 10th Kentucky Infantry, though he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation. He left military service in 1863, when he was elected attorney general of Kentucky.[^1] He lost his bid for re-election in 1867 and joined the [[Republican Party (United States)]] in 1868, soon leading its Kentucky organization. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him to the Court in 1877.[^1] On the bench, Harlan held to a strong national government and showed sympathy for the economically disadvantaged. He read the Reconstruction Amendments as having fundamentally changed the relation between the federal government and the states.[^1] ## Early life and education Harlan was born in 1833 at Harlan's Station on Salt River Road, about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Danville, Kentucky. The family's earliest members had settled in that region in 1779.[^2] His father, James Harlan, was a lawyer and Whig politician who represented Kentucky in the [[United States House of Representatives]] and held the office of Secretary of State of Kentucky. His mother, Elizabeth (née Davenport), was the daughter of a pioneer from Virginia.[^2] His father admired Chief Justice [[John Marshall]] and named the boy for him; Harlan was raised on the family estate near Frankfort.[^2] After schooling in Frankfort, Harlan enrolled at Centre College. There he joined Beta Theta Pi, and he graduated with honors.[^2] His mother hoped he would become a merchant, but his father insisted that he study law. Harlan entered his father's practice in 1852.[^2] ## Politician and lawyer In 1851 Kentucky [[governor]] John L. Helm offered Harlan, then a Whig like his father, the post of state adjutant general. Harlan held the post for eight years, and it gave him a statewide presence.[^3] When the Whig Party broke apart in the early 1850s, he moved to the Know Nothings, despite his discomfort with their opposition to Catholicism. In 1858 he was elected county judge of Franklin County, Kentucky.[^3] In 1859 he left the Know Nothings for the state's Opposition Party. As its candidate for Kentucky's 8th congressional district, he lost to Democrat William E. Simms.[^3] Through the 1850s Harlan criticized both abolitionists and pro-slavery radicals.[^3] In the 1860 presidential election he supported the Constitutional Union ticket of John Bell and Edward Everett, campaigned for it across Kentucky, and served as a presidential elector for Bell. After [[Abraham Lincoln]] won, Harlan worked to keep Kentucky from seceding.[^3] When the war began in April 1861, Harlan wrote pro-Union editorials and represented the Union in state court.[^4] He recruited the 10th Kentucky Infantry and served until 1863, when Kentucky elected him attorney general. He was defeated for re-election in 1867 and became a Republican the following year.[^1] ## Supreme Court justice The Hayes administration considered Harlan for several posts, including Attorney General. At first, however, the only offer it made him was a seat on a [[Commission]] sent to Louisiana to settle disputed statewide elections.[^5] A Court vacancy had opened in January 1877, when Justice [[David Davis (Supreme Court justice)]] resigned after the Illinois General Assembly elected him to the Senate.[^5] Hayes wanted a Southern appointee after the disputed 1876 presidential election, and he chose Harlan. The nomination drew some criticism from Republican Stalwarts, but the Senate confirmed him unanimously on November 29, 1877. He took the judicial oath on December 10, 1877.[^5] Harlan kept good personal relations with his colleagues, even when he disagreed sharply with them on the law.[^6] Debt troubled him throughout his tenure, particularly while he paid for his three sons' college educations. In the early 1880s he weighed resigning to return to private practice. He remained on the Court instead and earned extra income teaching constitutional law at the Columbian Law School, later the George Washington University Law School.[^6] When he joined the Court, its heavy docket consisted mostly of diversity and removal cases, with few constitutional questions.[^6] ### Dissents and opinions Harlan was the lone dissenter in the Civil Rights Cases (1883) and in *Plessy v. Ferguson* (1896). Those decisions allowed state and private actors to practice racial segregation.[^1] His other dissents included three from the 1890s and 1900s: - *Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.* (1895), in which the Court struck down a federal income tax; - *United States v. E. C. Knight Co.* (1895), which sharply narrowed federal antitrust power; - *Lochner v. New York* (1905), which voided a state maximum-hours law on substantive due process grounds. He also dissented in *Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States* (1911), the case that established the rule of reason.[^1] He was the first justice to urge incorporation of the Bill of Rights. He also wrote the majority opinion in *Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Co. v. City of Chicago* (1897), which incorporated the Takings Clause.[^1] ## Death Harlan died on October 14, 1911. His 33 years on the Court were then the third-longest tenure in its history, and they remain the seventh-longest.[^7] He was the last justice from the Waite Court still serving at his death. He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where three other justices are also interred.[^7] ## Personal life In December 1856 Harlan married Malvina French Shanklin, the daughter of an Indiana businessman, and the marriage lasted until his death. The couple had six children, three sons and three daughters.[^8] Their sons all held public or institutional posts: - Richard, the eldest, became a Presbyterian minister and president of Lake Forest College. - James S. Harlan practiced law in Chicago and served as attorney general of Puerto Rico and as chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission. - John Maynard Harlan, the youngest, practiced in Chicago and served as an alderman. His son, John Marshall Harlan II, was an associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971.[^8] Harlan left few assets to support his widow and two unmarried daughters. In the months after his death, leading members of the Supreme Court Bar set up a fund for the family.[^8] Harlan was a conservative Presbyterian of the Old School branch. He opposed higher criticism and adhered to Calvinism.[^9] Legal scholar James W. Gordon wrote that Harlan's faith "was the most important lens through which he viewed the people and events of his life".[^9] While on the Court, Harlan was an elder at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. There he taught a Sunday school class of middle-aged men from 1896 until his death.[^9] ## Legacy For decades after his death, Harlan received little attention; his standing rose from the mid-twentieth century. Many scholars now rank him among the greatest justices of his era, and he is remembered especially for his *Plessy* dissent.[^10] Historian D. Grier Stephenson wrote that Harlan "understood the Reconstruction Amendments to establish a nationally protected right against racial discrimination", while observing that Harlan often stated those promises in dissent.[^10] Legal scholar Bernard Schwartz wrote that "Harlan's key dissents have generally been affirmed in the court of history." The Supreme Court has largely adopted Harlan's view that the Fourteenth Amendment made the Bill of Rights binding on the states.[^10] Harlan's name is carried by John Marshall Harlan Community Academy High School, a public high school in Chicago, and by John Marshall Harlan High School in Texas. During World War II, the Liberty ship SS John M. Harlan was named for him.[^10] Centre College created the John Marshall Harlan Professorship in Government in 1994. In 2025 it unveiled a bronze statue of Harlan by Ed Hamilton on its campus. The "Harlan Scholars" at the University of [[Louisville]]'s Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, an undergraduate organization for students interested in law school, are also named for him.[^10] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26; CC BY-SA 4.0) — lead section: dates, tenure, nickname, Civil War service, party affiliation, appointment, principal dissents and opinions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^2]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Early life and education": birthplace, parents, schooling, entry into law practice in 1852. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^3]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Politician and lawyer: Rise, 1851–1861": adjutant general post, party changes, 1858 judgeship, 1859 congressional race, 1860 election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^4]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Politician and lawyer: Military service, 1861–1863": Unionist activity in 1861. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^5]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Supreme Court justice: Nomination": Louisiana commission, Davis vacancy, confirmation on November 29, 1877, and oath on December 10, 1877. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^6]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Supreme Court justice: Life on the court": collegial relations, finances, teaching at Columbian Law School, docket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^7]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Death": date of death, length of tenure, burial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^8]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Personal life: Family": marriage, children, survivors' fund. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^9]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Personal life: Religious beliefs": denomination, Gordon quotation, church eldership. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan [^10]: Wikipedia contributors, *John Marshall Harlan* (revision 1361714305, retrieved 2026-10-26) — "Legacy": reputation, Stephenson and Schwartz quotations, incorporation, commemorations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marshall_Harlan