About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

25 J. Sup. Ct. Hist. 1 (2000)

handle is hein.journals/jspcth25 and id is 1 raw text is: 


















Introduction
        Melvin   I. Urofsky
  Chairman, Board of Editors


    It has now been seven years since I took
over as editor of this Journal, and I am con-
stantly surprised at the infinite variety of sub-
jects that fall within the rather broadly defined
topic of Supreme Court history. To quote
Shakespeare, it is an ever-changing delight.
I hope the readers share my pleasure at the
wide range of topics discussed between our
covers.
    This issue is a case in point. The first
article grows out of a sister enterprise of the
Society, the Documentary   History of the
early Supeme  Court, headed by Dr. Maeva
Marcus. Although we assume  that there have
always been clean lines between the different
branches of government-indeed, we believe
that the Constitution mandates such a separa-
tion of powers-the fact of the matter is that
early in our history government was  very
fluid, and the members of each branch real-
ized that there would be times when murki-
ness rather than clarity would be desirable in
relations among the branches. Elliott Ashke-
nazi, one of the associate editors of the Docu-
mentary  History project, explores one such


instance in an area of law about which we
hear little these days, admiralty.
    Salmon  P. Chase did not become Chief
Justice until the Lincoln administration, a
time when most  things Jacksonian had been
repudiated. Yet according to Mark A. Graber,
time moves more slowly in the judicial branch
than it does in the legislative or executive,
whose members  must face re-election periodi-
cally. Just as Franklin D. Roosevelt's appoint-
ees continued to have an impact on the Court
through the Warren era, so, Graber claims, the
Jacksonian nominees laid the basis for an ac-
tivism that would have appalled Old Hickory.
    When  we think of the Supreme Court and
criminal justice, we rarely think of the people
involved, concentrating instead on the princi-
ples enunciated. For example, we know far
more about the Miranda warning than we do
about Miranda the man. If it had not been for
Anthony  Lewis's classic Gideon's Trumpet
-and  the movie made from it starring Henry
Fonda-we would probably not know too
much  about the cause of one of the Court's
great cases, Gideon v. Wainwright. In the late


1

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

profiles profiles most