Two Jewish Lawyers Named Louis* JONATHAN D. SARNA The year 1856 was a vintage year for brilliant Jewish lawyers named Louis. On November 13, 1856, Louis Brandeis was born in Louisville, Kentucky. One month later, on December 14, 1856, Louis Marshall was born in Syracuse, New York. Louis and Louis were both first-generation Americans, born of central European Jewish parents. They both compiled stellar academic records. They both went on to have a profound affect on American law. Both were considered for seats on the U.S. Supreme Court, although only one of them made it. 1 And both became eminent leaders in American Jewish life. Yet while both men earned enormous respect within the Jewish and general communities, they never became friends and rarely worked to- gether. They differed religiously, philosophically, and politically. They approached Judaism, America, and even the law itself from sharply different perspectives. The parents of Louis Brandeis and Louis Marshall arrived in America at approximately the same time in the middle of the nineteenth century. 2 Brandeis’ parents hailed from Prague, Marshall’s father from Baden and his mother from Württemberg. The two fathers had experienced prejudice and privation in central Europe that precipitated their emigration. Adolph Brandeis, who grew up in an urban area and studied at the Technical * An earlier version of this paper was delivered as the 2006 B. G. Rudolph Lecture in Judaic Studies at Syracuse University, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Louis Marshall. I am grateful to Syracuse University for permitting me to publish the lecture here. I am also grateful to Kevin Proffitt of the American Jewish Archives for documents he sent me in the preparation of this paper, to Yael Rooks-Rapport for research assistance, and to Jehuda Reinharz, Matthew Silver, Melvin Urofsky, and Vicky Saker Woeste for comments on an earlier draft. 1. On the campaign to have President William Howard Taft nominate Louis Marshall to the Supreme Court, see David G. Dalin, “Louis Marshall, The Jewish Vote, and the Republican Party,” Jewish Political Studies Review 4 (Spring 1992): 69–74. 2. Alpheus Thomas Mason, Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life (New York: Viking Press, 1946), 11–22, discusses Brandeis’ parents. See also Josephine Goldmark, Pilgrims of ‘48 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930). For Marshall’s parents, see Oscar Handlin, “Introduction,” in Louis Marshall, Champion of Liberty: Selected Papers and Addresses, ed. Charles Reznikoff (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1957), ix–x. See also Marshall to Edward G. Friton, Apr. 24, 1929, and Marshall to William Prescott Greenlaw, Jul. 6, 1926, in Louis Marshall, Champion of Liberty, 6–7.