On Tuesday, I spoke at the Louisville Federalist Society Chapter about presidential immunity. After the debate, I was fortunate enough to visit the Library's special collections. The collection includes papers from Justice Louis Brandeis, the namesake of the law school, who is actually buried outside the building. The collection also includes papers from Justice John Marshall Harlan I. I have spent some time with Justice Harlan's papers at the Library of Congress. In 2013, I published a paper with Brian Frye and Michael McCloskey that transcribed Harlan's constitutional law lecture notes. (To this day, I use some of Harlan's lines in class–for example, when I tell my students that the Supremacy Clause is the most important provision in the Constitution; without it, everything else would fall apart.) Over the years, I've corresponded with Peter Scott Campbell, a librarian at Louisville. Campbell was kind enough to show me around the room.
One of the coolest pieces I saw was a letter that Frederick Douglass wrote to Justice Harlan shortly after the Civil Rights Cases (1883) was decided. I encourage you to read the entire letter, which Campbell helpfully transcribed. Here is an excerpt:
