Who needs time machines when you have books? Once read Mr. Justice (edited by Allison Dunham and Philip Kurland, both men), a collection of mini-biographies of justices that included a chapter by one Mr. (sic) John Paul Stevens. The edition was published before he was even a federal judge, the library copy so old that it had an old address for the Mid-Manhattan library. The book had accounts of justices from Marshall to Rutledge (Stevens was his clerk).
I recently also re-read a book, Justice William Johnson: The First Dissenter written a bit earlier than that. The book is a bit of a trudge at times, but overall, it is an interesting account (focused largely on his career, his family basically disappearing after they came on the scene) of a largely unknown moderate Republican voice on the Marshall Court. He had a restrained view of judicial power, but also accepted the basic lines of Marshall's view on the Commerce Power. So much that when a state law infringed upon it (and the treaty power), he strongly rejected it, even it was a law involving black sailors coming from his own state of South Carolina. He also rejected what he felt was hysteria over slave uprisings in other areas, including cutting back on due process rights. I wrote the below early in the Bush Presidency.
A bit of history ....
Background: The slavery question was beginning to cause major excitement, especially after the Missouri Compromise. A planned slave uprising was recently put down, and Charleston, SC strongly dealt with those accused, using special judicial proceedings ... but note even slaves in the heart of the slave South had judicial proceedings, if with limited rights. Supreme Court Justice William Johnson (a South Carolina slave owner) was upset, since basic rights such as being able to confront one's accusers and seeing the evidence against you were not being protected. As the proceedings went on, he publicly used an apparent earlier miscarriage of justice involving a slave to serve as a warning. His fellow citizens were not pleased. Thus, his sad words to Thomas Jefferson about a year later:
"I ... begin to to feel lonely among the men of the present day. And I am sorry to tell you, particularly so in this place. This last summer has furnished but too much cause for shame and anguish. I have lived to see what I really never believed it possible I could see, --- courts held with closed doors, and mean dying by scores who had never seen the faces nor heard the voices of their accusers. I see that your governor has noticed the alarm of insurrection which prevailed ... the best way in the world to make them [the people] tractable is to frighten them to death; and to magnify danger is to magnify the claims of those who arrest it .... strangers are alarmed at coming near us; our slaves rendered uneasy; the confidence between us and our domestics destroyed."The governor was concerned abuses occurred, and made such concerns official:
"[T]he governor ... consulted the attorney general on the legality of their proceedings, and you will be astonished to hear that he gave a direct opinion in favour of it. If such be the law of this country, this shall not long be my country."
"The rules which universally obtain among civilized nations, in the judicial investigation of crime, are not merely hypothetical, or simply matter of opinion, but the result of the highest intelligence, instructed and matured by experience. They are given as guides, to assist the imperfections of human reason, and to enable it to combine and compare the various circumstances and probabilities, which occur in every case. Few minds are competent without these aids, to develop intricate affections of the heart."But the state legislature was not pleased, and tabled the move to officially accept his statements. Instead, the state moved slowly toward their extreme defense of slavery, including harsh treatment of black (negro) citizens, such as trying to block entry of black seamen. Of course, later there was a move to declare that all former slaves could never become citizens. Congress also passed a law allowing alleged fugitive slaves to be returned to slavery without basic constitutional rights of "persons" (including some who might actually be free and therefore "innocent") put in place. Likewise, whites were harmed, such as not being able to receive certain literature or even to free slaves when they desired to do so.
Currently, another "major excitement" has led to serious threats to basic liberties, and another disfavored group are the primary victims, though in the process everyone is hurt. This includes the distrust and fear (and concurrent ire and desire to strike back) between us and those that are being victimized. Finally, we are again left with a choice: respect our basic constitutional liberties, in place because of their value in obtaining our true happiness, or continue on a road of oppression toward total disharmony. Remember also, that things didn't look that bleak overall in the 1820s, but that didn't mean the seeds of future horrors were not being sowed.