JOHN CHALMERS VINSON. The Parchment Peace: The United States Senate and the Washington Conference, 1921-1922. Pp. xi, 259. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1955. $4.50

• Author: Bradford Perkins
• Published date: 01 July 1955
• Date: 01 July 1955
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625530000132
• Subject Matter: Articles

141

was

convinced

that

we

would

eventually

enter

the

European

war

and

opposed

per-

mitting

Hitler

to

control

our

entrance

by

providing

the

incident

for

which

the

Presi-

dent

was

apparently

waiting.

This

volume,

as

the

two

preceding

vol-

umes

of

the

diary,

will

be

widely

read

and

will

be

referred

to

constantly

as

one

of

the

best

day-to-day

personal

records

of

the

age

of

the

New

Deal.

G.

C.

OSBORN

University

of

Florida

DONALD

G.

MORGAN.

Justice

William

Johnson,

The

First

Dissenter.

Pp.

xv,

326.

Columbia:

University

of

South

Carolina

Press,

1954.

$6.50.

If

the

greatness

of

a

man’s

career

is

to

be

measured

by

the

applicability

of

his

concepts

and

actions

to

a

future

age,

Jus-

tice

William

Johnson

must

rank

high

among

leaders

of

the

early

national

period.

A

controversial

figure,

called

by

John

Quincy

Adams

&dquo;a

restless,

turbulent,

hot-headed,

politician

caballing

judge,&dquo;

and

character-

ized

by

Professor

Morgan

as

&dquo;proud,

aloof,

and

impulsive,&dquo;

Johnson,

whose

ideas

seem

surprisingly

topical

today,

had

gone

with-

out

an

adequate

biography

since

his

death

in

1834.

In

a

sense

this

is

easy

to

understand.

Foreshadowed

in

his

day

by

Marshall

and

Story,

later

biographers

of

these

men

han-

dled

him

as

a

pawn

with

which

to

show

their

figures’

greatness,

overplaying

the

partial

misconception

that

Jefferson’s

first

Republican

appointee

became,

under

Mar-

shall’s

tutelage,

an

extreme

nationalist

and

opponent

of

the

man

who

appointed

him.

Further,

Johnson,

a

slaveowner,

who

re-

garded

slavery

as

a

necessary

evil,

was

an

outspoken

foe

of

nullification

in

his

home

state

of

South

Carolina

and

hence

had

little

appeal

either

to

extreme

Northerners

or

Southerners.

As

a

critic

of

complete

laissez

faire,

who

rejected

absolute

free-

dom

of

contract,

his

ideas

were

also

anti-

pathetic

to

postwar

generations

endowed

with

the

unassailable

sanctity

of

private

property.

The

balance

on

Johnson

has

been

re-

dressed

admirably

by

Professor

Morgan.

Working

without

personal

papers,

he

has

revived

an

important

figure

and

in

the

process

has

thrown

valuable

light

on

both

Marshall

and

Jefferson.

He

acknowledges

that

Johnson

was

often

influenced

by

Mar-

shall

as

evidenced

by

his

acceptance

of

Marshall’s

McCulloch

ruling,

and

his

con-

curring

opinion

in

Gibbons

v.

Ogden,

where

he

went

further

than

the

Chief

Justice

in

proclaiming

the

breadth

of

national

au-

thority

under

the

commerce

clause.

He

is

careful

to

make

clear,

however,

that

in

a

number

of

important

areas

the

two

men

differed

sharply.

Johnson’s

sympathy

to-

ward

vested

rights

did

not

prevent

him

from

frequently

supporting

state

regula-

tion,

and

influenced,

especially

in

his

later

career

by

Thomas

Jefferson,

he

took

a

sharply

distinct

view

on

the

role

of

judges

and

their

fallibility,

the

power

and

super-

ceding

authority

of

legislatures,

and

the

value

of

the

individual

in

society.

Fur-

ther,

his

contributions

in

molding

court

procedure

and

defining

the

jurisdiction

of

Federal

courts

rank

with

those

of

Marshall

in

establishing

important

legal

precedents.

Professor

Morgan

avoids

the

tendency

in

judicial

biography

toward

either

excessive

legalism

or

oversimplification.

With

the

forthcoming

studies

of

Stone

and

Harlan,

the

steadily

growing

literature

on

our

Su-

preme

Court

justices

should

begin

to

as-

sume

respectable

proportions.

PAUL

L.

MURPHY

Ohio

State

University

JOHN

CHALMERS

VINSON.

The

Parchment

Peace:

The

United

States

Senate

and

the

Washington

Conference,

1921-1922.

Pp.

xi,

259.

Athens:

University

of

Georgia

Press,

1955.

$4.50.

While

competent

scholars,

notably

C.

Leonard

Hoag

and

Harold

and

Margaret

Sprout,

have

studied

the

movement

culmi-

nating

in

the

Washington

Conference

of

1921-22,

Dr.

Vinson

is

the

first

to

con-

centrate

upon

the

activities

of

the

Senate

in

the

struggle

for

disarmament and

se-

curity.

Briefly,

his

theme

is

the

differ-

ences

between

the

Senate

and

the

Execu-

tive

and

the

eventual

triumph

of

isolation-

ist

Senatorial

principles

in

the

Four

Power

Treaty,

which

sharply

limited

American

commitments

in

the

Pacific.

This

is

an

in-