While working my way through Brad Snyder’s terrific new book, Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment, I found myself spending inordinate amounts of time admiring his endnotes. There are a lot of them to admire (almost 200 pages worth); they are clear and precise, and they allow the reader to peek behind the curtain and appreciate the stunning amount of research that went into creating this biography.
Frankfurter left behind a massive paper trail. He was a prodigious writer of articles, books, memos, and letters. He was also a lifelong cultivator of relationships with the kinds of people who were themselves energetic writers. The book’s endnotes tell the story of the years Snyder spent reading Frankfurter’s published works, interviewing people who knew him, and scouring the voluminous collections of Frankfurter’s papers and scores of archives around the country. This book, the first comprehensive biography of one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American law, is a major achievement.
Democratic Justice demonstrates the continued intellectual value of even the most traditional of historical genres, the “great man” biography. Frankfurter reached the heights of traditional power structures—an influential Harvard Law professor and then a Supreme Court justice—and in his day he was widely recognized as an exceptional individual.
Snyder presents a standard chronological narrative that never strays far from his subject. His thesis, which appears throughout the book but mostly operates in the background, is the standard claim of the biographer, namely that the subject of the biography merits more sympathetic attention than they have received. There’s nothing particularly innovative or unexpected here—just a lot of careful research, attention to biographical craft, and a scholar who wants to share with the reader their admiration for their subject. It’s not new, but it works.
In capturing Frankfurter, Snyder has written a serious history of ideas, law, and politics leavened by a touch of soap opera. This is a book to be enjoyed as well as admired. Snyder’s prose is filled with colorful detail and texture drawn from the source material. He thankfully avoids lengthy summaries of Frankfurter’s academic and judicial writing (a kiss-of-death for any biography of a Supreme Court justice that aspires to readability).
Snyder’s subject also helps to make this a lively read. Frankfurter thrived in battling for those he admired and against those he did not. He was passionate. He expressed strong opinions about everything and everybody. His politics, his personality, and his Jewish identity meant that many people had strong opinions about him.
Frankfurter was always advocating for his views of the world. He did this in letters to friends and followers, in conversation (the contents of which regularly found their way into the written record), in memos he self-consciously wrote “for the record,” and in his famously lengthy Supreme Court concurrences and dissents. He worked hard to make sure that those around him—as well as future biographers—knew exactly where he stood and why. Frankfurter’s exhaustive efforts at self-advocacy allow Snyder to argue for Frankfurter’s continued significance simply by presenting his life, placing the reader alongside Frankfurter as he waged his battles. Frankfurter was famous for collecting acolytes. Snyder invites the reader to join those ranks.
Frankfurter would surely have been disappointed with the state of his reputation as a Supreme Court justice. By the time of his death in 1965, Frankfurter had become the Warren Court’s cranky, lecturing conservative. His opinions defending judicial restraint left him on the wrong side of history—he would have upheld a compulsory flag salute in public schools; he resisted the application of criminal justice provisions of the Bill of Rights to the states; and he urged the federal courts away from the “political thicket” of electoral districting. For generations of scholars and law students who admired the idea of a boldly progressive Court, Frankfurter’s judicial career was a cautionary tale.
Maybe the time is right for a reappraisal of Frankfurter’s legacy. The possibility of a boldly progressive Court has become distant. Viewed through the lens of recent decades, the Warren Court’s liberal achievements appear less impressive, and the Warren Court itself looks more and more like an historical aberration. The Court’s bold actions of late (and for the foreseeable future) have been aimed toward defeating liberal causes. In aligning itself with the interests of a dedicated conservative minority, today’s Supreme Court echoes the Court of the Lochner Era, when Frankfurter’s passionate advocacy of judicial restraint placed him at the forefront of liberal constitutionalism. For those who don’t like the direction our current Court is taking, Frankfurter’s voice may resonate.
I’m not convinced Frankfurter merits a full-blown revival. He was too elitist and too arrogant. He misjudged too many critical issues during his time on the Court. But Frankfurter deserves to be reconsidered. In light of current events, his modest conception of the Court’s role and his principled defense of judicial restraint deserve more sympathetic appraisal. Snyder’s biography provides a magnificent foundation on which to have this discussion.
