Mr. Chief Justice Rehnquist, dead at 80.
I thought I would share some thoughts on Justice Rehnquist, partly in his own words.
The handsome devil on the right is John Marshall. Since chief justices are today's subject, I thought I would pay my respects to the man who made the court what it is today.
A 1952 memo from William Rehnquist, then a clerk to Justice Robert Jackson, on Plessy v. Ferguson.
The memo was called "A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases." It was initialed at the bottom, "whr," signaling that it had been written by none other than William H. Rehnquist, still less than 30 years old and two decades away from being appointed to the court.
Rehnquist's memo unambiguously stated that "Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." It acknowledged that this "is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues." But in its key passage, it insisted that "one hundred and fifty years of attempts on the part of this court to protect minority rights of any kind — whether those of business, slaveholders, or Jehovah's Witnesses — have all met the same fate. One by one the cases establishing such rights have been sloughed off, and crept silently to rest. If the present court is unable to profit by this example, it must be prepared to see its work fade in time, too, as embodying only the sentiments of a transient majority of nine men."
Rehnquist went on: "To the argument … that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are."
Rehnquist's memo concluded that the court should uphold segregation and refuse to protect "special claims" merely "because its members individually are 'liberals' and dislike segregation."
Or how about this one?
During elections from 1958 to 1962, Rehnquist was the director for the Republican Party’s “Operation Eagle Eye” program in Arizona. Leading teams of lawyers to various polling stations in Arizona, members of Operation Eagle Eye (dubbed “ballot security”) attempted to use legal methods to dissuade black voters. Before the passage of the Voting Rights Act, Rehnquist and his colleagues were often quite successful at using legal methods to rig ballots, thereby creating an undemocratic election.
The house in which Rehnquist lived during this time had a deed stating that the home could not be sold to any person not of the Caucasian race. Upon moving in 1974 Rehnquist bought a home in Vermont that contained a covenant prohibiting the sale of the property to “any member of the Hebrew race.”
Rehnquist, at his confirmation hearings in 1986, told the Senate Judiciary Committee he hadn't examined his deeds and knew nothing of the covenants.
Some lawyer!
The distinguished gentleman on the left is Earl Warren. If he had never been Chief Justice, I sincerely doubt that Barak Obama would be a Senator or Ron Brown would have been Secretary of Commerce under President Clinton.
In 1980, Rehnquist made his thoughts on the case of United States v Sioux Nations known to the press: “We conquered them, why should we pay for their land?”
This is the man who presided over the institution responsible for protecting our Constitution.
This was a man who could have benefited from reading Amendment XIV to the Constitution, at least once. For that matter, he would have done well to read the amendments it's sandwiched between, XIII and XV, as well. Looks like Rehnquist was all for equal protection- just as long as you didn't try to buy his house!
God bless Earl Warren. God bless William O. Douglas. God bless Thurogood Marshall. God bless John Marshall. God bless Brandeis, Cardozo, Fortas, Black, Brennan, Powell, White, Blackmun, Harlan, Harlan, and Stewart.
God save this court.
posted by The leftist southpaw @ 12:06 PM
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