Harry Blackmun

Harry Blackmun
Born	Harry Andrew Blackmun 12 11, 1908
Birthplace	Nashville, Illinois, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Arlington, Virginia, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Jurist, lawyer
Known for	Author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade
Education	Harvard University (AB, LLB)
Children	3

Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. Born in Nashville, Illinois, and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Blackmun followed a path from modest Midwestern origins through Harvard Law School to the highest court in the land. Appointed by President Richard Nixon as a perceived judicial conservative, Blackmun evolved over nearly a quarter century on the bench into one of the Court's most liberal members — a transformation that made him one of the most consequential and closely studied justices of the twentieth century. He is best known as the author of the Court's landmark 1973 opinion in Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion and reshaped American law and politics for generations. Prior to his Supreme Court appointment, Blackmun served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit from 1959 to 1970, having been appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During his tenure on the Supreme Court, Blackmun authored significant opinions on topics ranging from commercial speech and sex discrimination to the death penalty, and his judicial philosophy underwent a marked transformation that mirrored broader shifts in American constitutional jurisprudence. He retired in 1994 during President Bill Clinton's administration and was succeeded by Justice Stephen Breyer. Blackmun died on March 4, 1999, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Early Life

Harry Andrew Blackmun was born on November 12, 1908, in Nashville, Illinois. His family relocated to the Twin Cities area of Minnesota when he was young, and he grew up in Saint Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood. His father, Corwin Blackmun, worked as a fruit and provisions wholesaler, and the family faced financial difficulties during Harry's childhood. These modest Midwestern origins shaped much of Blackmun's character and judicial temperament throughout his life.

As a boy growing up in Saint Paul, Blackmun formed a friendship with Warren Burger, who would later serve as Chief Justice of the United States. The two attended grade school together, and their relationship would become a defining feature of Blackmun's early years on the Supreme Court, where the press dubbed them the "Minnesota Twins" for their tendency to vote together. This childhood friendship, however, would ultimately fracture under the pressures of divergent judicial philosophies during their shared years on the bench.

Blackmun grew up during a period of significant social change in the United States, witnessing World War I, the influenza pandemic, and the economic turbulence that preceded the Great Depression. His upbringing in the working-class Dayton's Bluff neighborhood gave him an understanding of ordinary Americans' struggles that would later inform his judicial opinions, particularly in cases involving individual rights and government power.

Education

Blackmun attended Harvard University, where he studied mathematics as an undergraduate. He graduated from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts degree and subsequently enrolled at Harvard Law School, earning his law degree (LLB) in 1932. His mathematics background would prove valuable in his meticulous, detail-oriented approach to legal reasoning, a characteristic that became evident throughout his judicial career. At Harvard, Blackmun was a contemporary of several individuals who would go on to prominence in American law and public life. His legal education at Harvard during the late 1920s and early 1930s took place during a transformative period in American legal thought, as the school's faculty grappled with the emerging legal realist movement.

Career

Early Legal Career

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1932, Blackmun embarked on a legal career in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. He served as a law clerk for Judge John B. Sanborn Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit — the very judge he would eventually succeed on that bench. Following his clerkship, Blackmun entered private practice. He spent a significant portion of his early career representing clients in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, and he notably served as resident counsel for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. His work with the Mayo Clinic, one of the nation's preeminent medical institutions, gave him an unusual familiarity with medical practice and healthcare administration. This expertise in the intersection of law and medicine would prove consequential years later when he authored the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, which drew heavily on the history of medical practices related to abortion and on the physician-patient relationship.

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals

In 1959, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Blackmun to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, succeeding his former mentor Judge John B. Sanborn Jr. Blackmun served on the Eighth Circuit from September 21, 1959, until June 8, 1970, when he departed to join the Supreme Court. During his eleven years as a federal appellate judge, Blackmun developed a reputation as a careful, methodical jurist with conservative inclinations. His opinions were characterized by thorough analysis and close attention to factual detail, traits that had been honed during his years of private practice and his mathematical training at Harvard.

Blackmun's service on the Eighth Circuit covered a period of immense social upheaval in the United States, including the height of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the expansion of federal regulatory power. His work on the circuit court brought him to the attention of Republican legal circles, and his judicial record appealed to the Nixon administration as it sought nominees for the Supreme Court who would practice judicial restraint.

Nomination to the Supreme Court

Blackmun's path to the Supreme Court was shaped by the difficulties that President Nixon encountered in filling the vacancy left by the resignation of Associate Justice Abe Fortas in 1969. Nixon's first two nominees — Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell — were both rejected by the Senate. Haynsworth was defeated amid questions about financial conflicts of interest, and Carswell was voted down largely due to concerns about his record on civil rights and his perceived mediocrity as a jurist. The vacancy had persisted for 391 days by the time the Senate finally acted on Blackmun's nomination.

Blackmun was Nixon's third choice for the seat. He reportedly acknowledged this fact with characteristic self-deprecation, referring to himself as "Old Number Three." Nixon selected Blackmun in part because of his friendship with Chief Justice Warren Burger, who recommended him, and in part because his conservative record on the Eighth Circuit aligned with the president's desire to move the Court in a more conservative direction. On May 12, 1970, the Senate confirmed Blackmun by a vote of 94 to 0, reflecting broad bipartisan support for his nomination after the divisive battles over the previous two nominees. He took his seat on the Court on June 9, 1970.

Supreme Court Tenure

Early Years and the "Minnesota Twins"

During his initial years on the Supreme Court, Blackmun frequently voted in alignment with his childhood friend, Chief Justice Warren Burger. The press labeled the two justices the "Minnesota Twins" because of their similar voting patterns and shared Minnesota backgrounds. In this early period, Blackmun was generally regarded as a judicial conservative, consistent with the expectations of the Nixon administration that had appointed him.

However, the alignment between Blackmun and Burger began to erode as the 1970s progressed. The two justices diverged on a number of significant issues, and their personal relationship deteriorated as well. By the later years of their shared service on the Court, Blackmun and Burger were frequently on opposite sides of important cases, and the "Minnesota Twins" label became an ironic historical footnote rather than an accurate description of their judicial relationship.

Roe v. Wade

The case that would define Blackmun's legacy — and become one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century — was Roe v. Wade, decided on January 22, 1973. Chief Justice Burger assigned the majority opinion to Blackmun, and the justice drew upon his extensive experience as counsel to the Mayo Clinic to craft an opinion that situated the abortion question within the framework of medical history and the physician-patient relationship.

In Roe v. Wade, the Court held by a 7–2 vote that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution contained a right to privacy broad enough to encompass a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy. Blackmun's opinion established a trimester framework that balanced the state's interests in regulating abortion against the individual's right to privacy, with different levels of state regulation permissible at each stage of pregnancy.

The decision immediately became one of the most controversial rulings in Supreme Court history. Blackmun received thousands of letters in response to the opinion — many of them hostile, including death threats — and the case made him a target of anti-abortion activists for the remainder of his life. Despite the intense criticism, Blackmun remained committed to the principles articulated in Roe throughout his time on the Court.

In 1992, the Court considered Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which challenged the continued validity of Roe v. Wade. The joint opinion in Casey, authored by Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, upheld the core holding of Roe while replacing the trimester framework with an "undue burden" standard. Blackmun joined part of the joint opinion but filed a separate concurrence in which he warned that Roe remained in jeopardy and that its survival depended on a single vote.

Commercial Speech and Sex Discrimination

Beyond Roe v. Wade, Blackmun authored a number of significant majority opinions during his Supreme Court tenure. In Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1975), he wrote the majority opinion holding that commercial speech — in this case, an advertisement for abortion services — was entitled to some degree of First Amendment protection. This decision helped lay the groundwork for the Court's developing commercial speech doctrine.

Blackmun further extended the scope of commercial speech protections in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona (1977), in which he authored the majority opinion striking down a state bar association's blanket prohibition on attorney advertising. The decision held that such advertising was commercial speech protected by the First Amendment and could not be subjected to a complete ban.

In the area of sex discrimination, Blackmun wrote the majority opinion in Stanton v. Stanton (1975), in which the Court struck down a Utah statute that set different ages of majority for males (21) and females (18) for purposes of child support obligations. The decision held that such sex-based classifications violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Death Penalty

Blackmun's evolving views on capital punishment represented one of the most striking aspects of his judicial transformation. In Furman v. Georgia (1972), early in his Supreme Court tenure, Blackmun authored a dissenting opinion in which he expressed personal opposition to the death penalty but concluded that it was constitutional. He argued that his personal views should not override what he believed to be the proper legal analysis.

Over the following two decades, however, Blackmun's position shifted dramatically. In 1994, near the end of his tenure, Blackmun authored a notable dissent in Callins v. Collins in which he declared that he would "no longer tinker with the machinery of death." In this opinion, Blackmun concluded that the death penalty could not be administered in a manner consistent with the Constitution and that he would henceforth vote to vacate all death sentences.

Blackmun was one of three justices — along with Lewis Powell and John Paul Stevens — who had initially allowed the death penalty to return in the 1970s but later disavowed their earlier positions. Powell reportedly said after his retirement that his vote to uphold capital punishment was the decision he most regretted, and Stevens eventually concluded that the death penalty was unconstitutional. Blackmun's renunciation, however, was the most dramatic and explicit of the three, delivered while he was still actively serving on the Court.

Bowers v. Hardwick and DeShaney v. Winnebago County

Blackmun authored notable dissenting opinions in several other significant cases. In Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the Court upheld a Georgia sodomy statute that criminalized consensual homosexual conduct. Blackmun's dissent argued that the case was not about a "fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy," as the majority framed it, but rather about "the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men — the right to be let alone." His dissent was later vindicated when the Court overruled Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas (2003).

In DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989), the Court held that the Due Process Clause did not impose an affirmative duty on the state to protect individuals from private violence. The case involved a young boy, Joshua DeShaney, who had suffered severe abuse at the hands of his father despite the awareness of local child protective services. Blackmun authored a brief but memorable dissent, writing simply: "Poor Joshua!" His dissent argued that the state's knowledge of the danger and its failure to act should have imposed constitutional liability.

Ideological Evolution

Blackmun's transformation from a perceived conservative to one of the Court's most liberal members is one of the most documented ideological shifts in Supreme Court history. When Nixon appointed him, Blackmun was expected to be a reliably conservative vote. By the time of his retirement in 1994, he was often aligned with the Court's liberal wing on issues including abortion rights, the death penalty, civil rights, and the separation of church and state.

Scholars and commentators have debated whether Blackmun's views genuinely changed or whether the Court itself moved to the right, leaving Blackmun in a relatively more liberal position. Blackmun himself suggested at various points that the Court had moved rather than he had, though the evidence of his opinions suggests a genuine evolution in his thinking, particularly on issues of individual rights and human dignity.

Retirement

Blackmun announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in April 1994, at the age of 85. He served until August 3, 1994, when his successor, Stephen Breyer, took the oath of office. President Bill Clinton nominated Breyer to succeed Blackmun, ensuring that a relatively liberal justice replaced another. Blackmun had chosen to retire during a Democratic administration so that his replacement would be more likely to preserve the principles he had championed, including the right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade.

Personal Life

Blackmun married Dorothy E. Clark, and together they had three daughters. Throughout his years on the Supreme Court, Blackmun was known for his meticulous work habits, his detailed note-taking, and his genuine engagement with the cases that came before him. He maintained voluminous personal papers, which he donated to the Library of Congress with instructions that they be opened to the public five years after his death.

The Blackmun papers, which were made available in 2004, provided unprecedented insight into the internal workings of the Supreme Court during Blackmun's tenure. They included detailed records of the justices' deliberations, conference notes, draft opinions, and personal correspondence, making them an invaluable resource for scholars of the Court.

Blackmun's relationship with Chief Justice Burger, once so close that the two were dubbed the "Minnesota Twins," deteriorated significantly over the course of their years on the Court. The personal and ideological distance that grew between them became a subject of public commentary and scholarly interest.

Harry Blackmun died on March 4, 1999, at the age of 90, in Arlington, Virginia. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Recognition

Blackmun received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Performed by an Elected or Appointed Official during his career, recognizing his contributions to American law and public life.

His legacy in American jurisprudence extends well beyond any single honor. The opinion in Roe v. Wade is among the most cited and debated Supreme Court decisions in history, and it defined Blackmun's public identity for the remainder of his life and beyond. The case generated intense public reaction; Blackmun received both praise and condemnation in enormous volume, including hate mail and death threats that continued for years after the decision.

His dissent in Callins v. Collins, with its declaration that he would "no longer tinker with the machinery of death," became one of the most frequently quoted judicial statements on capital punishment and is widely assigned in American law schools.

The opening of the Blackmun papers at the Library of Congress in 2004 was itself a major event in legal scholarship, drawing extensive media coverage and providing researchers with a trove of previously confidential material about the internal dynamics of the Supreme Court.

Legacy

Harry Blackmun's legacy in American law is defined by his authorship of Roe v. Wade and by the remarkable ideological journey he undertook during his twenty-four years on the Supreme Court. Appointed as a presumed conservative by President Nixon, Blackmun's evolution into one of the Court's most liberal justices challenged conventional assumptions about the predictability of judicial nominees and demonstrated the ways in which the experience of judging can itself shape a jurist's worldview.

His contributions to First Amendment jurisprudence through opinions such as Bates v. State Bar of Arizona and Bigelow v. Commonwealth of Virginia helped establish the framework for commercial speech protections that remains in effect today. His dissents in Bowers v. Hardwick and DeShaney v. Winnebago County articulated principles of personal liberty and government accountability that influenced subsequent judicial thinking. The Court's eventual reversal of Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, four years after Blackmun's death, served as a vindication of his dissenting position.

Blackmun's shift on the death penalty — from reluctant acceptance to emphatic rejection — paralleled similar evolutions among other justices of his era, including Lewis Powell and John Paul Stevens. Together, these transformations highlighted the tensions inherent in the administration of capital punishment in the United States and contributed to ongoing debate about the constitutionality and morality of the practice.

The Blackmun papers at the Library of Congress remain a unique resource for understanding the Supreme Court of the late twentieth century. Their release provided documentation of how major constitutional decisions were made, including the internal deliberations surrounding Roe v. Wade and other landmark cases, enabling scholars to study the Court's decision-making processes with a level of detail rarely available.

Blackmun's burial at Arlington National Cemetery reflects the national significance of his public service. His career — from the modest neighborhoods of Saint Paul to the chambers of the Supreme Court — exemplified the possibilities and complexities of American public life in the twentieth century.