A Concurring Opinion on Brown v. Board

In the matter of BROWN v BOARD, Justice Earl Warren was sensibly desirous of ensuring that the Court would speak with only one voice. He wrote the opinion, and the only opinion, for all nine Justices.

Warren knew of course that there would be blow-back from the politicians of the former confederacy -- and not only from them -- and that it would be good if the politicians engaging in blowing back at this opinion were not aided by any divisions within the court itself.

He seems to have had some trouble persuading Justice Robert Jackson of this necessity. Jackson was dying at the time but was participating in deliberations and worked on several drafts of what he expected to be a concurring opinion.

I suspect that Jackson thought he would help Warren's cause by making Warren and the other seven judges seem moderate. He may have deliberately sought to outline a position that would seem to segregationists more extreme and outrageous, so they would react to Earl Warren's position as to a moderate.

That was never likely and in time Warren talked him out of issuing it. Impressively, Jackson, who was hospitalized and dying when the 9-0 decision was about to be announced, left the hospital so he could be there for the show of unanimity.

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A Story About Coleridge

This is a quote from a memoir by Dorothy Wordsworth, reflecting on a trip she took with two famous poets, her brother, William Wordsworth, and their similarly gifted companion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. We sat upon a bench, placed for the sake of one of these views, whence we looked down upon the waterfall, and over the open country ... A lady and gentleman, more expeditious tourists than ourselves, came to the spot; they left us at the seat, and we found them again at another station above the Falls. Coleridge, who is always good-natured enough to enter into conversation with anybody whom he meets in his way, began to talk with the gentleman, who observed that it was a majestic waterfall. Coleridge was delighted with the accuracy of the epithet, particularly as he had been settling in his own mind the precise meaning of the words grand, majestic, sublime, etc., and had discussed the subject with William at some length the day before. “Yes, sir,” says Coleridge, “it is a majesti

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Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

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