The Great Dissenter

The story of an American hero who stood against all the forces of Gilded Age America to help enshrine our civil rights and economic freedoms.

Dissent. No one wielded this power more aggressively than John Marshall Harlan, a young Union veteran from Kentucky who served on the US Supreme Court from the end of the Civil War through the Gilded Age. In the long test of time, this lone dissenter was proved right in case after case. They say history is written by the victors, but that is not Harlan's legacy: his views - not those of his fellow justices - ultimately ended segregation snf helped give us our civil rights and our economic freedoms. Derided by many as a loner and a loser, he ended up being acclaimed as the nation's most courageous jurist, a man who saw the truth and justice that eluded his contemporaties.

"Our Constitution is color blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among it's citizens," he wrote in his famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, one of many cases in which he lambasted his colleagues for denying the rights of African Americans. When the court struck down antitrust laws, Harlan called out the majority for favoring it's own economic class. He did the same when the justices robbed states of their power to regulate the hours of workers and shielded the rich from the income tax. When othr justices said the court was powerless to prevent racial violence, he took matters into his own hands: he made sure the Chattanooga officials who enabled a shocking lynching on a bridge were brought to justice.

In this monumental biography, prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Peter S. Canellos chronicles the often torturous and inspiring process through which Supreme Courts can make and remake the law across generations. But he also shows how the courage and outlook of one man can make all the difference.

Why did Harlan see things differently? Because his life was different. He grew up alongside Robert Harlan, whom many believed to be his half brother. Born enslaved, Robert Harlan bought his freedom and became a horseracing pioneer and a force in the Republican Party. It was Robert who helped put John on the Supreme Court.

At a time when many justices journey from the classroom to the bench with few stops in real life, the career of John Marshall Harlan is an illustration of the importance of personal experience in the law. And Harlan's story is also a testament to the vital necessity of dissent - and of how a flame lit in one era can light the world in another.