David Souter, the former Supreme Court justice, was known for his conservative instincts yet made decisions aligning with liberalism. Appointed by George H.W. Bush, many conservatives viewed him as a disappointment due to what they termed 'stealth' liberalism. Souter was influenced by Justice Harlan, who believed the Constitution could evolve with societal changes. This perspective, once broadly accepted, became a point of contention in the increasingly polarized political climate of the 1990s, illustrating the complex nature of American judicial interpretation and its implications on liberal versus conservative ideologies.
Justice Souter portrayed himself as he was: a judge of basically conservative instincts who took as his role model Justice John Marshall Harlan II, a distinguished New York lawyer and an Eisenhower appointee who was often in dissent during the heyday of Supreme Court liberalism under Chief Justice Earl Warren. Justice Harlan nonetheless viewed the Constitution as a charter of 'ordered liberty,' the meaning of which could evolve over time to encompass concepts not explicitly mentioned in the text, such as the right to privacy.
To conservatives, Souter wasn't just a 'judicial liberal' appointed by a Republican president... What made Souter an eternal cautionary tale for the right was his alleged 'stealth' liberalism.
Only in the increasingly partisan and polarized climate of the 1990s and later could an interpretive stance that was once so widely held as barely debatable come to be viewed as the hallmark of a judicial liberal.
#david-souter #supreme-court #judicial-philosophy #constitutional-interpretation #political-polarization
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