John M. Harlan

John M. Harlan --Overview: Born: May 20, 1899 Died: December 29, 1971 Party: Republican Time served: 16 years, 5 months, 25 days Position: associate Justice Nominated by: Eisenhower Commissioned: March 17, 1955 Sworn in: March 28, 1955 Left Office: September 23, 1971 Reason for leaving: Retired

-BIOGRAPHiCAL SKETCH John M Harlan was commissioned in the Kentucky 10th Infantry as a colonel on 21 November 1861. He resigned on 6 April 1863 due to the death of his father. William E. Ludlow was mustered into the Indiana 10th Infantry as a sergeant on 18 September 1861. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant and adjutant on 22 June 1862. He was mustered out on 20 September 1864.

Oliver P. Morton was the fourteenth governor of Indiana. He established himself as a “War Governor” because of his strong efforts to support the war, one of which was to allow Indiana residents to apply in the Kentucky army.

Biography -- John Marshall Harlan is the namesake and grandson of the first Justice John Marshall Harlan. He was born in Chicago, the son of a prominent attorney who twice ran unsuccessfully for mayor. Harlan was educated at Princeton and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he read law. He took an American law degree at New York Law School in 1925.

Harlan spent most of his early professional life in private practice with a distinguished Wall Street firm. There were occasional stints in government service, most notably as chief counsel for the New York State Crime Commission during the administration of Governor Thomas Dewey.

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Harlan to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but he served there only ten months. Eisenhower promoted him to the High Court.

Harlan was the intellectual leader of the conservatives on the Court, frequently dissenting from the liberal activist decisions of the Warren Court. He defended federalism against centralization of power and he never accepted the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment somehow incorporated or embraced the Bill of Rights.

Harlan was widely respected, even by his opponents, for his thoroughness, candor, and civility. Though he frequently disagreed publicly with Justice Hugo Black, they were close friends off the bench.