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The Failure Of Felix Frankfurter, Melvin I. Urofsky
The Failure Of Felix Frankfurter, Melvin I. Urofsky
University of Richmond Law Review
There is, unfortunately, no way one can predict whether a person appointed to the Supreme Court will be a great justice or a mediocre one. The nomination of John Marshall, for example, evoked numerous complaints about his lack of ability. The Philadelphia Aurora characterized him as "more distinguished as a rhetorician and sophist than as a lawyer and statesman," and the Senate, in fact, delayed its confirmation vote for a week hoping President John Adams would change his mind. When Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Court in 1916, pillars of the bar crowded into the Senate judiciary …