John Marshall Harlan: Biography from Answers.com Mobile

John Marshall Harlan

(born June 1, 1833, Boyle county, Ky., U.S. — died Oct. 14, 1911, Washington, D.C.) U.S. jurist. In the 1850s he was a lawyer and county judge in Boyle county, Ky. From 1861 to 1863 he commanded a Union regiment in the American Civil War. He served as state attorney general (1863 – 67) and ran unsuccessfully as a Republican candidate for governor in 1871 and 1875. In 1877 he was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes. During his tenure, which lasted to his death in 1911, he became one of the most forceful dissenters in the court's history and its outstanding liberal justice. His best-known dissenting opinions, such as those in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the Civil Rights cases (1883), favoured the rights of blacks. He also issued famous dissents in favour of the federal income tax (1895) and opposing monopolies in cases arising under the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. His grandson John Marshall Harlan (1899 – 1971) also served on the Supreme Court (1955 – 71).

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