Talk:John Marshall Harlan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| B | This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] | ||
 |
John Marshall Harlan is within the scope of WikiProject Kentucky, an open collaborative effort to coordinate work for and sustain comprehensive coverage of Kentucky and related subjects in the Wikipedia. | |
| B | This article has been rated as b-Class on the Project's quality scale. | |
| High | This article has been rated as high-importance on the Project's importance scale. | |
 |
Please explain ratings on the ratings summary page. | |
 |
WikiProject Echo has identified John Marshall Harlan as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the German language Wikipedia. |
strange man.
Error on the page. An assertion is made on the page that Harlan was the first to adopt the idea of incorporation through the due process clause, and further that his position was later adopted by Justice Hugo Black. This is incorrect. Black was an advocate for "total incorporation," that is, incorporating then entire Bill of Rights against the states. Harlan, on the other hand, was for "selective incorporation." He only wanted to apply the bill of rights when it was essential to fundamental fairness for the states. Justice CARDOZO is the one who adopted Harlan's view. Someone fix, please.
[edit] Prejudiced against the Chinese? Why?
I am rather disturbed by the part concerning a supposed bias against Chinese :
- Harlan's liberal views on race did not extend to the Chinese. He wrote this biased statement in his dissent: "There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. ...But by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana [cannot]...
Maybe Harlan disliked or despised the Chinese, I have no idea. Yet to call this part of the Plessy dissent biased sounds to me like a total misunderstanding. Harlan contrasts "the Chinse race"'s lots to "the black race"'s. A Chinaman is not a citizen and the law of the country are hostile to him (Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882). A Black is a citizen and a such is entiled to the equal protection of the laws. Yet the former is allowed in the Whites' coach and the latter is not. Certainly, his point is not that the Chinaman should be excluded, nor that the Chinese Exclusion Act is a good idea (nor a bad one). This contrast simply shows that the law of Louisiana is a display of prejudice against the Blacks and tramples citizenship and the equals protection clause. In my view, the only suspicious phrase is "a race so different from our own". I do not know whether he states his opinion, or merely the opinion of the country, as expressed in its law. our own is an interesting phrase too, it most certainly means white, but that should not be surprising. Also note this alleged bias did not preclude him to vote with the Court in Yick Wo v. Hopkins. -- Didup 19:27, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I can provide numerous cites to law review articles discussing his bias against the Chinese. I just thought that the text of his dissents was enough to show his prejudice. And you should note that the citizen distinction you're discussing is in sharp contrast to Yick Wo's fundemental holding that the 14th amendment applies to "persons" not "citizens". We literally just spent an entire con law class talking about Harlan's bias against the Chinese (and against blacks as well). Zpops 20:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
- This may be of interest, and of course the full article from which the link provides a summary. Newyorkbrad 22:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Harlan's views on the Chinese don't seem to belong in the subheading "Plessy v. Ferguson." They are simply different court decisions, and did not directly affect one another. Infernallek 04:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)infernallek
was the China part removed altogether
[edit] Modern law degree?
What is a modern law degree? Numerous earlier justices had law degrees. Anthony717 21:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
