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An Unexpected Discovery in the D'angelo Law Library Unearthed An An unexpected discovery in the D’Angelo Law Library unearthed an original letter from John Marshall to George Washington. And that wasn’t all. By Becky Beaupre Gillespie 20 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW S C H O O L I SPRING 2017 90170_pgs_12_29.indd 1 3/7/17 3:32 PM n March 26, 1789, 22 days after the newly Which is why, when Sheri Lewis, the director of the ratified US Constitution took effect, future University of Chicago’s D’Angelo Law Library, opened Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall sent an unfamiliar hardbound volume from the library’s a letter to George Washington at his Mount Rare Book Room last summer and glimpsed Marshall’s Vernon estate, where the president-elect was waiting for 227-year-old letter—the original—pasted carefully inside, OCongress to count the votes of America’s first electors. her first thought was, “Oh—wow.” It was, in many ways, an unremarkable note from a What’s more, the handwritten missive wasn’t alone. Richmond lawyer to his powerful, land-owning client, The carefully constructed album that had protected it for merely the latest in an ongoing conversation regarding nearly six decades, maybe more, bristled with 18th- and Washington’s disputed claim to a piece of land on the banks 19th-century Supreme Court history, mostly hand-drawn of the Ohio River. But it was also one founder writing to portraits and letters signed by early justices, men like John another: a constitutional defender who would help shape Jay, Oliver Ellsworth, Samuel Chase, Salmon P. Chase, the nation’s legal system advising the man who would soon and Oliver Wendell Holmes. assemble the nation’s first cabinet, oversee the creation of And for years nobody at the University of Chicago Law a national government strong enough to navigate partisan School knew it was there. debate, and suppress the Whiskey Rebellion—and whose * * * property holdings in the Ohio River Valley were already There had been clues: an old catalog entry in the helping push the burgeoning nation west. D’Angelo’s records; a note in an online database It was history, living and breathing among the syllables maintained by the National Archives; a plaque on the of routine correspondence. library’s sixth floor honoring the album’s donor, albeit SPRING 2 0 1 7 I T H E UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL 21 90170_pgs_12_29.indd 2 3/7/17 3:32 PM for a different generosity; and a couple of 1958 articles “As historians, we tell our stories and build our analyses in back-to-back issues of the University of Chicago Law based on the evidence we have,” said Alison LaCroix, School Record. It had been the articles that ultimately led the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law and a legal Lewis and her team to the well-preserved, but temporarily historian who was among the first to examine the forgotten, collection in July. rediscovered collection. “There’s always this question of “It took me awhile to really absorb how much is in here,” what has been preserved, and why it’s been preserved. Lewis said one morning in early 2017, as the D’Angelo’s Sometimes things that are ‘lost’ don’t stay lost, and librarians were preparing to send the 154-page album to the when we find them, we have new evidence. But what’s central University of Chicago Library to be fully digitized. interesting, and important to remember, is how much of it “Every piece of parchment in this book tells a story.” is chance.” It was the point, she noted with a laugh, of the It had been a busy several months since Lewis first Sheri Lewis and Alison LaCroix with the collection in the saw the volume. In that time, she and her team created D’Angelo’s Rare Book Room. an inventory of the collection, examined it with a final number in the musical Hamilton, “Who Lives, Who preservation librarian and Law School scholars, and Dies, Who Tells Your Story,” which centers on the twists worked to unravel the mysteries of the album, which of fate that ultimately shape one’s legacy. had been given to the Law School in the late 1950s by a “You think of history as being this thing that comes colorful Chicago hotelier, Louis H. Silver, ’28. in nice, tidy boxes,” said William Baude, the Neubauer The discovery was thrilling and unexpected but, for Family Assistant Professor of Law and a scholar of librarians and scholars versed in archival research, it constitutional originalism who also has examined the wasn’t a shock. Library science has evolved significantly collection. “But it doesn’t. There are things that we don’t since the late 1950s; back then, there were no digital know are out there—and things that we know are out inventories and few finding aids—new items were there but don’t know we have.” catalogued and added to the shelf. As a result, the Before the Law School’s discovery, historians actually knew Supreme Court collection was, in fact, never truly lost: that Marshall had written to Washington on March 26, it was well-preserved and findable to those who went 1789; current-day researchers just didn’t know where the looking—it’s just that, after a while, there was nobody at note was or what it said. Its entire public record was reflected the Law School who would have known about it without in a short entry in the National Archives’ Founders Online looking. And that’s why the rediscovery wasn’t a shock. database: “To George Washington from John Marshall, History, after all, is a decidedly human affair that takes 26 March 1789 [Letter Not Found].” Other letters in the on a slightly different shape for each generation, molded series had been catalogued as part of the Papers of George by a combination of perspective, whim, and fortuity. Washington at the University of Virginia and incorporated People discover, forget, and rediscover; they choose what into Founders Online—including Washington’s April to protect, display, study, and discuss—and all of this 5, 1789, reply to Marshall, which began, “Sir: I have ultimately shapes the historical narrative, often leaving a duly received your letter of the 26 Ulto . ” (Note: trail of breadcrumbs along the way. Ulto is an abbreviation of the Latin ultimo mense, used 22 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW S C H O O L I SPRING 2017 90170_pgs_12_29.indd 3 3/7/17 3:32 PM SPRING 2 0 1 7 I T H E UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL 23 90170_pgs_12_29.indd 4 3/7/17 3:32 PM in correspondence at that time to say “last month.”) Also “In these manuscripts, we hear the voices of the included in the database: the March 17, 1789, letter from country’s greatest jurists, recorded in their own hand, Washington that prompted Marshall’s March 26 reply. along with portraits that put faces to the authors,” said Bill “I think for me part of the excitement is that nobody Schwesig, the D’Angelo’s Anglo-American and Historical knew what this March 26 letter said, and now we do,” Collections Librarian. “The great effort and expense that said LaCroix, an expert in early American history. “But Mr. Silver put into building the collection resulted in a also, like most historians, I have a fascination with holding beautiful and engaging artifact.” the real things. I was almost fearful in a way when Sheri The written documents, which appear to be expertly brought it to my office and let me keep it for a day or two. affixed to preservation-quality pages, are arranged not I thought, Can I really have this? It’s unique, it’s the only by the order in which they were produced, but by the one, it’s its own thing.” order in which the writer or signer served on the Supreme The album, bound in blue goatskin with gold tooling, Court—starting with a 1783 letter written by the first is filled with strokes of history, each with the potential to chief justice, John Jay, and ending with a 1917 letter by shade the narrative in some small way or even deepen our Oliver Wendell Holmes. In between, the book holds a understanding of modern America. There are 60 drawings 1797 bank draft signed by the Supreme Court’s third chief and five photographs of Supreme Court justices, various justice, Oliver Ellsworth; an 1844 letter from Justice Peter banking and legal documents, and 75 letters, including Vivian Daniel to President John Tyler; and an 1823 note the one by Marshall and one in which future Chief Justice from Supreme Court Justice William Johnson to David Salmon P. Chase speculates that Abraham Lincoln will Hosack, the physician who nearly two decades earlier had win the upcoming 1860 election. attended to Alexander Hamilton after his fatal duel with 24 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW S C H O O L I SPRING 2017 90170_pgs_12_29.indd 5 3/7/17 3:32 PM Aaron Burr. One of the oldest documents is a 1762 writ And the fact that it was given to us by an alum is significant.” from King George III summoning a man named William Louis Silver, who had been an engineer before attending Keating to court in Charleston, South Carolina; it was the Law School, was known as lively, astute, and signed by the state’s provost marshal, John Rutledge, who discriminating. His personal collection of rare books— more than 30 years later would serve—briefly—as the US some 800 of which were purchased by the Newberry Supreme Court’s second chief justice.
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