Hugo L. Black Cold Steel Warrior

by Ball, Howard

• ISBN13: 9780195078145
• ISBN10: 0195078144
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780195360189
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-09-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

During his thirty-four year tenure as a Justice of the Supreme Court, Hugo L. Black demonstrated, in the words of one of his colleagues, "a true passion for the Constitution." At a moment's notice, in front of visiting students or a clutch of legal dignitaries, the Judge would whip his tattered copy of the Constitution from his coat pocket, flip through it to a particular passage and then, in a high voice, read the passage con vivace . And though Black began his political career in Alabama as the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan--with their help in 1926 he became a U.S. Senator--thirty years later, he would argue forcefully for an end to segregation in the South. In Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior , distinguished writer Howard Ball draws from Black's extensive files in the Library of Congress and on interviews with his colleagues on the Court, his law clerks, and his family to illuminate the enigmatic career of a man who became one of the twentieth century's most vigilant defenders of freedoms and liberty. Ball's examination of Black's life reveals a consummate politician who kept, in a safe beside his desk, the names, addresses, and backgrounds of all those who gave Black support from the time he ran for the county solicitor's job in Jefferson County, Alabama, through his two terms as a U.S. Senator. A fervent New Deal advocate, Black lent his support to F.D.R.'s court packing plan, and was one of the few who stood with the President until the measure's defeat in 1937. Less than one month later, F.D.R. rewarded Black by nominating him to the Supreme Court. Soon after Black's confirmation by the Senate, the story of his Klan membership spread across the nation, prompting Time magazine to write that "Hugo won't have to buy a robe, he can dye his white one black." One of Black's early opinions for the Court, however, changed most of the negative opinion about him. Writing for the majority in Chambers v. Florida , Black and his colleagues overturned charges against four African-American men unjustly accused of murder. In addition to Black's political and judicial career, Ball captures some of the great legal minds at work--Earl Warren, Thurgood Marshall, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, John M. Harlan II, and William J. Brennan--and their encounters with the tough Justice who was an immovable force when engaged in a constitutional battle. From Brown v. Board of Education and the first tests of the power of the federal courts to implement the Brown decision, to the height of McCarthyism and the national hysteria about Communism, to New York Times v. United States , the famous Pentagon Papers case in 1971 (Black's last opinion for the Court which defended a newspaper's First Amendment rights), Black emerges as a staunch defender of federalism and the primacy of the First Amendment, a strict, literal interpreter of the Constitution, and always proud to be a member of the Supreme Court. Throughout his life, Hugo Black's cockiness, sternness, and stubborn determination won him many critics. On every occasion, as Howard Ball shows, Black proved his critics wrong. He became a major presence in the Senate and one of the great Justices ever to sit on the Supreme Court.

Author Biography

Howard Ball is Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. A distinguished writer of judicial biographies and histories of the federal courts, he has written many books, including The U.S. Supreme Court: From the Inside Out and Of Power and Right: Justices Black and Douglas and America's Constitutional Revolution.

Table of Contents

Chronology	xiii
Introduction	3	(7)
One / Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior	10	(19)
The Owen Roberts Letter Incident	10	(5)
The Strong, Vigorous Temperament	15	(3)
Steely Tough at Home	18	(5)
Use of Language	23	(1)
The Human Dilemma	24	(2)
Love Affair with the Court	26	(1)
The Cold Steel Warrior's Vision of the Future	27	(2)
Two / Alabama Roots	29	(19)
The South	30	(6)
Race and Racism in Alabama	36	(3)
Family History	39	(4)
The Complex Man from Alabama	43	(5)
Three / The Birmingham Years	48	(21)
Practicing Law in Birmingham	50	(2)
Police Court Judge	52	(2)
Birmingham's Prosecutor (Jefferson County)	54	(2)
The Army, Loves, and Marriage	56	(4)
Joining the Ku Klux Klan	60	(2)
Running for the U.S. Senate	62	(7)
Four / Senator from Alabama	69	(20)
The Legislator from Alabama	71	(8)
The Public Utility Holding Company Battle	79	(1)
"Go for The Jugular" Senate Inquisitor	80	(6)
The President's Court-Packing Plan	86	(3)
Five / "I Nominate Hugo L. Black of Alabama"	89	(18)
The President Nominates, the Senate Confirms	90	(5)
Membership in the Klan: Sit or Quit	95	(5)
Friendship with Walter White of the NAACP	100	(7)
Six / The Supreme Court Justice from Alabama: The Role and Functions of the U.S. Supreme Court	107	(17)
The Constitution as Fundamental Law	109	(3)
Constitutional Powers of Government	112	(1)
Constitutional Limits on Governmental Uses of Power	113	(3)
Due Process of Law	116	(1)
The Equal Protection Clause	117	(2)
The Judicial Function in a Constitutional Government	119	(2)
The Role of the Supreme Court in American Politics	121	(3)
Seven / Friends, Enemies, and Legal "Children"	124	(45)
The Fur Begins to Fly: Conflict in the Court	127	(3)
Friends and Enemies	130	(1)
William O. Douglas	131	(6)
Felix Frankfurter	137	(8)
Robert H. Jackson	145	(7)
Abe Fortas	152	(5)
William J. Brennan, Jr.	157	(5)
John M. Harlan II	162	(4)
Hugo's Other "Children," His Law Clerks	166	(3)
Eight / Commitment to "Our Federalism" and to the Primacy of Freedom of Expression	169	(41)
"Our Federalism": Black's Perspective on the Federal-State Relationship in America	171	(17)
The "Firstness" of the First Amendment	188	(12)
"Speech Plus Conduct" and Other Controversial First Amendment Free-Speech Questions	200	(10)
Nine / Fourteenth Amendment Battles: Incorporation, Due Process, Equal Protection, and "New Rights"	210	(34)
Should the Bill of Rights Be "Incorporated" into the Fourteenth Amendment?	211	(7)
Due Process of Law: The Continuing Clash of Views	218	(3)
Equal Protection of the Laws	221	(15)
Creating "New Rights"	236	(8)
Ten / The Enduring Legacy	244	(9)
The Death of the Judge	244	(2)
The Enduring Legacy	246	(4)
Above All, the Constitution	250	(3)
Notes	253	(36)
Bibliography	289	(5)
Cases Cited	294	(3)
Index	297