Justice and Jurisprudence facts for kids
Cover page of the first edition, 1889
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| Author | Anonymous (affiliated with the Brotherhood of Liberty) |
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| Published | 1889 (J. B. Lippincott & Co.) |
Justice and Jurisprudence is a book that was first published in 1889 by the Brotherhood of Liberty. It was a critique of rulings of the Supreme Court of the United States on the Reconstruction Amendments. The book is "the first known comprehensive book on jurisprudence written by blacks" and serves as a valuable source of information on African Americans' legal opinions in the late 19th century.
Background
After passing a bar exam in Maine in 1844, Macon Bolling Allen became the first African American lawyer in the United States. In 1865, John Swett Rock became the first Black person to be admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Partly in response to Black people being restricted from entering the Maryland Bar, a group known as the Brotherhood of Liberty was formed in Baltimore on June 2, 1885. That same year, Everett J. Waring was admitted to the bar and that portion of the Brotherhood's goal was reached. However, the group stayed active with the goal to fight "against denial of liberty according to race," and to "use all legal means within [their] power to procure and maintain [their] rights as citizens of [their] common country."
Authorship and publication
In 1889, the Brotherhood of Liberty wrote Justice and Jurisprudence: An Inquiry Concerning the Constitutional Limitations of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The book, which is 578 pages long, was published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. and sold for $3.00. Harvey Johnson, a reverend in Baltimore, felt that the book could influence racial thinking.
Although the book is listed as having been written only by Brotherhood of Liberty, the scholar Elaine K. Freeman argues that John Henry Keene, a white lawyer, actually wrote the vast majority of the book; Freeman attributes only its first 43 pages to the Brotherhood and argues that they were written by Harvey Johnson. Mark Weiner concurs with Freeman, attributing most of the work to Keene. J. Smith disagrees, writing in the Notre Dame Law Review that Waring likely "played a key role" in writing the book and speculating that contemporary Black lawyers including William E. Matthews, John H. Butler, Joseph F. Davis, and William Henry Richardson were involved. A near-contemporary biographical encyclopedia, in a profile of Keene, attributes Justice and Jurisprudence to him.
Content
The book called for a "sober investigation and dissection of the decisions of our courts which have produced or suffered the present obscuration of the great political truths of the Fourteenth Amendment." It argued that Black people should be considered prima facie citizens of the US as long as they were born in the country; that civic life "should be free, easy, elastic, and natural"; and advocated for jurisprudence that would be fair to Black citizens.
Justice and Jurisprudence began with a preface and the bulk of its content was 46 chapters that condemned decisions of the United States Supreme Court such as the Civil Rights Cases, which the Brotherhood argued misinterpreted the Reconstruction Amendments. The book further maintained that the Court "ignored precedent, manipulated language to justify outcomes, and founded decisions on prejudice and policies instead of higher law and the forward march of morality."
