All Screwed Up

One Man, One Voice, by Charles Morgan Jr. (Holt, 348 pp., $12.95)

A year ago last summer I happened to be called into New York several times to debate representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union on the question of the Nazis in Skokie. What I discovered then was that the jurisprudence of the ACLU is a combination of the worst features of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henny Youngman: it is a collection of one-liners aspiring to find a principle. Charles Morgan shows, in this autobiography, that he is still the quintessential representative of the ACLU, despite his stormy break from that organization three years ago. As a lawyer and political man his nature has ever been more robust than thoughtful or reflective. He came out of Alabama as a white populist; the injustices he encountered in the South were heavy-handed, the tone of politics was crude, and the Morgan who came through it all has never been marked by an over-supply of delicacy. He opened the Atlanta office for the ACLU (the first branch in the South) and moved from there to be the head of the Washington office. He was present along the way at a number of celebrated cases—the defense of Captain Howard Levy and Muhammad Ali; the attack on malapportionment in the legislature of Georgia; the persistent campaign to require judges in the South to enroll black jurors.

About the Author

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the founder and director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding.

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One Man, One Voice, by Charles Morgan Jr. (Holt, 348 pp., $12.95)

A year ago last summer I happened to be called into New York several times to debate representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union on the question of the Nazis in Skokie. What I discovered then was that the jurisprudence of the ACLU is a combination of the worst features of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Henny Youngman: it is a collection of one-liners aspiring to find a principle. Charles Morgan shows, in this autobiography, that he is still the quintessential representative of the ACLU, despite his stormy break from that organization three years ago. As a lawyer and political man his nature has ever been more robust than thoughtful or reflective. He came out of Alabama as a white populist; the injustices he encountered in the South were heavy-handed, the tone of politics was crude, and the Morgan who came through it all has never been marked by an over-supply of delicacy. He opened the Atlanta office for the ACLU (the first branch in the South) and moved from there to be the head of the Washington office. He was present along the way at a number of celebrated cases—the defense of Captain Howard Levy and Muhammad Ali; the attack on malapportionment in the legislature of Georgia; the persistent campaign to require judges in the South to enroll black jurors.