Scope and Content Note
The papers of John Marshall Harlan (1833-1911) span the period 1810-1971, with the bulk of the material from 1861 to 1911. The collection consists of correspondence, subject files, speeches and writings, legal and financial records, and miscellaneous material organized in two parts. Part I contains seven series: Family Correspondence; General Correspondence; Subject File; Speeches, Writings, and, Related Material; Legal File; Financial Papers; and Miscellany. Part II is arranged in General Correspondence, Subject File, Speech File, Legal File, Financial Papers, Miscellany, and Papers of James Harlan (1800-1863).
Most of the family correspondence in the Harlan Papers is found in Part I of the collection, although a few family letters are interfiled in the General Correspondence series of Part II. The majority of these letters were exchanged between Harlan and his wife, Malvina Shanklin Harlan; his sons, James S. Harlan, Richard D. Harlan, and John Maynard Harlan; and his brother-in-law, James G. Hatchitt.
The General Correspondence series in Parts I and II contain information relating to Harlan's legal practice in Kentucky in the early 1870s when he was in partnership with Benjamin Helm Bristow and John Newman, and to his political activities in Kentucky during 1876. Especially significant for information about the Ulysses S. Grant administration are letters from Bristow written between 1867 and 1877. In 1876 Harlan advocated Bristow's candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination and placed his name before the convention in Cincinnati in June of that year. Correspondence relating to Bristow's candidacy and the subsequent election of Rutherford B. Hayes is primarily with local political figures in Kentucky.
Also in the General Correspondence series of both parts are letters concerning Harlan's appointment to the Supreme Court. Part I correspondence contains letters written by Henry Clay to Harlan's father, James, from 1841 to 1850. Other correspondents of prominence in the first part include James Gilllespie Blaine, J. J. Crittenden, David Davis, Walter Quintin Gresham, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Augustus Everett Willson. Frequent or prominent correspondents in Part II include J. B. Bowman, George C. Drane, John William Finnell, William Cassius Goodloe, John Rodman, and Bluford Wilson.
After the presidential election of 1876 Harlan was appointed a member of the electoral commission established by Congress to settle the disputed results in Louisiana. Documents relating to the election and to his later role as American representative in the Bering Sea arbitration in 1892-1893 can be found in the Subject File series of Part I. Material in this series also relates to his service with the 10th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and to his tenure as professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. Further information about his career can also be gleaned from the materials accumulated by his namesake and grandson, John Marshall Harlan (1899-1971).
The Legal File in Part I treats Harlan's law career from its beginning through his years on the Supreme Court, including cases in which he was attorney or judge. In the Legal File of Part II are contracts, notes, receipts, and a few briefs relating to cases or clients.
Copies of memoirs of John Marshall Harlan recalling events dating back to the 1850s constitute most of the Speeches, Writings, and Related Material series of Part I. In the Miscellany of Part I are his “One Day Diary” for August 21, 1877, notebooks, biographical material, photocopies of Harlan family papers collected from other repositories by Alan F. Westin, Harlan's biographer, and Richard D. Harlan's nine-volume compilation of Justice Harlan's published Supreme Court opinions. Included in the Miscellany of Part II is a letter from Harlan to his son, Richard, written in July 1911, describing the relationship between Henry Clay and James Harlan prior to the Civil War and explaining John Marshall Harlan's connection with events bearing on Kentucky's position during the Civil War. This segment also contains a small group of financial papers belonging to Harlan's brother, James Harlan, Jr.
The papers of his father, James Harlan, in Part II of the collection, span the years 1810-1863, and are primarily financial, but include a few legal items. They also contain certificates relating to James Harlan's election to the United States House of Representatives in 1835 and 1837, his appointment by Millard Fillmore as one of the commissioners to ascertain and settle private claims in California in 1851, his commission to prepare an abridged and simplified civil and criminal code of practice for the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, his appointments and elections as attorney general of Kentucky in 1850, 1851, and 1855, and his appointment as secretary of state of Kentucky in 1841. His most prominent correspondent is Alexander H. H. Stuart, secretary of the interior from 1850 to 1853.