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The President Also Had to Consider the Proper Role of an Ex­ * President

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The President Also Had to Consider the Proper Role of an Ex­ * President ************************************~ * * * * 0 DB P H0 F E8 8 0 B, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The little-known * * story of how * a President of the * United States, Beniamin Harrison, helped launch Stanford law School. ************************************* * * * T H E PRESIDENT * * * * * * * * * * * * By Howard Bromberg, J.D. * * * TANFORD'S first professor of law was a former President of the United * States. This is a distinction that no other school can claim. On March 2, 1893, * L-41.,_, with two days remaining in his administration, President Benjamin Harrison * * accepted an appointment as Non-Resident Professor of Constitutional Law at * Stanford University. * Harrison's decision was a triumph for the fledgling western university and its * * founder, Leland Stanford, who had personally recruited the chief of state. It also * provided a tremendous boost to the nascent Law Department, which had suffered * months of frustration and disappointment. * David Starr Jordan, Stanford University's first president, had been planning a law * * program since the University opened in 1891. He would model it on the innovative * approach to legal education proposed by Woodrow Wilson, Jurisprudence Profes- * sor at Princeton. Law would be taught simultaneously with the social sciences; no * * one would be admitted to graduate legal studies who was not already a college * graduate; and the department would be thoroughly integrated with the life and * * ************************************** ************************************* * § during Harrison's four difficult years * El in the White House. ~ In 1891, Sena tor Stanford helped ~ arrange a presidential cross-country * train tour, during which Harrison * visited and was impressed by the university campus still under con­ * struction. When Harrison was * defeated by Grover Cleveland in the 1892 election, it occurred to Senator * Stanford to invite his friend-who * had been one of the nation's leading lawyers before entering the Senate­ * to join the as-yet empty Stanford law * faculty. Few expected President Harrison * to accept. Not that Senator Stanford * had failed to make the terms attrac­ * tive. Harrison was offered a limited teaching schedule; the opportunity * to lecture on any topic he chose; and the then-fantastic salary of $10,000. * But Harrison had already made it clear that he wanted to spend the * years after his presidency quietly. * The President also had to consider the proper role of an ex­ * president. America had a strangely * ambivalent attitude toward its former chiefs of state: It was thought un­ * democratic to provide them with * pensions, but degrading to their former office for them to accept * paid employment. Certainly no ex­ * president had ever joined a college * faculty. Teaching per se-much less, teaching at a struggling young * college-might not be an appropri­ ate sequel to the nation's highest * Leland Stanford (left) entertained President Harrison (seated) and Postmaster General John office. * Wanamaker (right) at the Senator's campus home during the presidential tour of 1891. Nonetheless, after several weeks Wanamoker would later help Harrison prepare the Stanford lectures. of zealous effort by Senator Stanford, * Harrison did accept. His reasons * can best be described as patriotic. mission of the university. It was a would open in the 1893-94 acade­ Harrison had become convinced * dynamic blueprint that Jordan hoped mic year without a single professor. during his presidency that Ameri­ * would attract established scholars. And then Leland Stanford man­ can public life had been corrupted He was soon disillusioned. Most aged one of the more spectacular by greed and selfishness. The rem­ * of the well-known law professors coups in the history of American edy, he concluded, was to educate * Jordan approached showed interest education. Americans in the benefits of self­ in his plans, but no more than that. government and instill a "greater * Two professors did accept offers of reverence for law." If he could in­ * employment; but one subsequently ELAND STANFORD and Ben­ culcate in new generations the values * decided to go to Cornell, and the jamin Harrison had been of disinterested citizenship and ser­ other, after some thought, asked for firm political allies since the vice, he wrote President Jordan, he a leave of absence to observe the [tJ days when they were both would "accomplish a work more * progress of Jordan's plans. It ap­ United States senators. Their alli­ lasting than anything I have yet been * peared that the Law Department ance ripened into a close friendship able to do." * ************************************** 12 STANFORD LAWYER Foll 199 1 ************************************* Senator Stanford had encour­ public, who would pay $1.25 a lec­ of the gradual unfolding of the * aged Harrison to lecture on the need ture ($6 for the series). The site would distinctive elements in American con­ for an international code of law, but be the University's largest hall, the stitutional government. He traced * Harrison desired a subject more temporary chapel, which could seat the Bill of Rights, separation of * suited to his inspirational purpose. 800 people. powers, checks and balances, judi­ * The Centennial of the Constitution There, surrounded by reproduc­ cial review, federalism, and other had fallen during his presidency, and tions of Raphael Madonnas and with features of the United States Con­ Harrison had been greatly impressed a Bible by his side, Harrison pre­ stitution to similar provisions in * by the effect of the celebrations on sented his meticulously prepared lec­ the colonial charters, the state * the nation. What better way to in­ tures to packed audiences. In these constitutions, and the previous spire Stanford students with a love lectures, Harrison boldly took up confederations. The two hundred * of American civil institutions than the most vigorous scholarly debate years ofexperiment and refinement­ * by explicating the history of that of his day on the Constitution. One a process guided by the "compelling fundamental document of the re­ side of the debate-what might be hand of Providence," the devout * public, the Constitution. called the "revolutionary" theory­ Harrison was aJwa ys careful to add­ * Harrison decided to present a was epitomized in Gladstone's had brought forth "the most free series of six lectures on the subject famous description of the Constitu­ and perfect system of government * and spent the summer and fall of tion as "the most wonderful work that men have ever enjoyed." It * 1893 in diligent preparation. In this was an argument well suited to undertaking, he had the benefit of Harrison's purpose of making the * the outpouring of scholarship sur­ Harrison's Stanford students' "love of our institutions * rounding the recent Centennial. deeper and more intelligent." Harrison devoted several hours a lectures, which were * day to reading the latest treatises * on the history of the Constitution; followed eagerly HE LECTURES were followed commentaries by British scholars eagerly not only at Stanford * comparing the American constitu­ throughout the Cf] but throughout the nation. * tion with their unwritten one; and People were curious as to the letters, pamphlets, and debates nation, introduced what a newly retired President * of the founding fathers. After orga­ would have to say about the form * nizing his copious notes, Harrison the general public to of government over which he had dictated successive drafts to his per­ just presided. Seven stenographers * sonal secretary, until he felt that he the evolutionary attended Harrison's first lecture, had gotten his lectures just right. and verbatim transcripts appeared * Exhaustively researched and care­ theory of in several newspapers. Subsequent * fully composed, they were cogent, lectures were also extensively re­ coherent, and forceful. the Constitution. ported throughoutthecountry. These * accounts were nearly unanimous in * praise, with "masterful," "adroit," N MARCH 5, 1894, the for­ ever struck off at a given time by "charming," "lucid," and "schol­ * mer President, accompanied the brain and purpose of man." arly and dignified" among the enco­ * by his secretary and a Pres­ The opposing view- " evolutionary" miums. Readers responded with a byterian minister, arrived as it were- was advanced by the spate of excited and enthusiastic * on the Stanford campus to the cheers new professional class of historians, letters. Harrison seemed to have in­ * of waiting students. He was given a trained in universities and writing in deed accomplished his purpose of suite of rooms in Encina Hall, then academic journals, who had risen up making the Constitution better * the men's dormitory. in opposition to what they consid­ known and respected. * From the time Harrison's fac­ ered a romanticized version of The reactions of students-who ulty appointment had been an­ history. Patiently poring through had to take in the dense and com­ * nounced, there had grown a great older documents and records, they plex material in one-and-one-half * clamor to hear him. It was therefore attempted to show that the Consti­ hour sittings- were more restrained. arranged that Harrison would de­ tution flowed from the long and The editor of the Stanford Daily, * liver each lecture twice: the first time difficult experiences of colonial writing some thirty years later, com­ * to the University faculty and to America. plained that he could not "recall one students in law and other
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