History of the Supreme Court of the United States

by Charles Fairman

Overview

In this supplement to Volume 7 of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States, Charles Fairman examines the Electoral Commission of 1877, which was headed by Justice Joseph P. Bradley. In the disputed presidential election of 1876, the Supreme Court was involved through the appointment of five justices to the commission of fifteen created by Congress to resolve the stalemate arising from the political division between the Senate and House. Divided seven to seven along party lines, the decisive vote and opinion was that of the member appointed for judicial impartiality, Justice Bradley. In his study of the Electoral Commission of 1877, Fairman sheds new light on this controversial historical event, vindicating Justice Bradley against his detractors. This book represents an important revision of conventional narratives of the Electoral Commission, combining intensive research with all the fascination of a detective story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521769105
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/23/2009
Series:	Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court of the United States
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Charles Fairman (1897–1988) was Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the author of Volumes 6 and 7 of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise History of the United State Supreme Court Reconstruction and Reunion: 1864–1888. He was also the author of numerous articles and books, including The Law of Martial Rule (1930) and Mr. Justice Miller and the Supreme Court (1939). In 1948 he published his casebook, American Constitutional Decisions, and a year later, he published his classic article, 'Does the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporate the Bill of Rights?'

Table of Contents

1. The election of Tuesday, November 7, 1876 and the Electoral Commission Act of January 29, 1877; 2. Proceedings of the electoral commission; 3. 'Immense gratuitous and unfounded abuse'; 4. Nevins' Hewitt and the 'secret history'.

Editorial Reviews

'This almost-immovable feast will guide and inform generations to come; any serious collection or library worth using will have a copy. Determined readers, blessed with good eyesight and sturdy bookrests, will exploit it as a standard by which to measure others' more modestly conceived efforts.' Harold B. Hyman, The American Historical Review

'Eschewing concepts such as judicial activism and judicial restraint, Fairman for the most part avoids generalization and interpretative summary. An admirer of Thayer and Frankfurter, he writes with judicious restraint and a keen appreciation for the difficulties faced by the court in this period of constitutional stress.' Herman Belz, University of Maryland

'Charles Fairman's magisterial volume sets an Olympian standard for the Holmes Devise History of the Supreme Court … [H]is book is considerably more than a compendium. It is as well a creative work of historical scholarship. Never before has the political, social, and ideological context of the Court's decisions been set forth with such learning, or with such sensitivity to the surrounding milieu … Professor Fairman has produced a magnum opus. Its appearance is a notable event in the history of American legal scholarship.' Harvard Law Review

'Finally, my summary view of Fairman's work: the book is an awesome, if sometimes excruciatingly discursive, accomplishment. Its forbidding scope and excellence of detail have to be experienced rather than read about. For once, nomen est omen: the author bends over backward to be fair to all the data he has collected – and that is almost all the data there is.' Gerhard Casper, Columbia Law Review

'In this massive text (with a table of cases containing about 1,250 entries), Fairman has considered in great depth a far larger portion of the Court's decisions than has any previous scholar … [A]s an authoritative reference work which provides an elaborate and comprehensive tracing of doctrinal lines from one case to another – lines drawn expertly across formal topical boundaries – Reconstruction and Reunion will long stand as an indispensable tool for new scholarship.' American Journal of Legal History

From the Publisher