ave questions of state gave
opportunity for the development of great statesmen and judges.

"Great crises produce great men. Justice Harlan was at home in
the thickest of the struggle, through the period of reconstruction,
an able lawyer, an uncompromisingly bold man, asserting his position
without fear or favor. While many of the important judicial and
Constitutional questions growing out of reconstruction legislation
remained unsettled, Justice Harlan took his place on the Supreme
Bench, having been appointed by President Hayes in 1877, and an
examination of the decisions of the Court since that year will show
the prominent part he has taken in the disposition of these
Constitutional questions.

"It has been said that there never was a very powerful character,
a truly masculine, commanding man, who was not made so by struggles
with great difficulties. Daily observation and history prove the
truth of this statement. Hence I believe that the rough-and-tumble
existence to which the majority of ambitious young men of our
country are subjected, does much to prepare them for the higher
duties of substantial, valuable citizenship. The active life and
early struggles of Justice Harlan in his State have had their
influence in making him the fearless jurist that he is.

"Shortly after his appointment, Justice Harlan was assigned as the
Supreme Justice for this circuit, and served here for eighteen
years. Many of you present remember his visit to Springfield and
his holding court in this room.

"To be a member of the Federal Judiciary is the highest honor that
can be conferred upon an American lawyer. The crowning glory of
our Nation was the establishment, by the fathers, of the independent
Federal Judiciary, which is the conservator of the Constitution.
I have unbounded faith in it. It is the protector of those
fundamental liberties so dear to the Anglo-Saxon race. State
Legislatures and the Congress may be swayed by the heat and passion
of the hour; but so long as our independent Federal Judiciary
remains, our people are safe in their legal, fundamental, Constitutional
rights.

"Perhaps there is nothing that illustrates so well Justice Harlan's
character, the equality of all men before the law, as do some of
his dissenting opinions."

I then referred to his famous dissent in the Civil Rights case,
delivered in 1883; to his dissent in the Income Tax case, and others
of his notable utterances from the Supreme B