History faculty member's research honored by Supreme Court Historical Society

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Rachel Shelden, director of Penn State’s George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center and associate professor of history, was recently recognized by the Supreme Court Historical Society for her scholarship on a particularly unusual moment in the history of the nation’s highest court.

Shelden’s article, “Anatomy of a Presidential Campaign from the Supreme Court Bench: John McLean, Levi Woodbury, and the Election of 1848,” received the Journal of Supreme Court History’s Hughes-Gossett Award for best article published in 2022. Published three times a year, the journal is dedicated to educating the public about the Supreme Court’s history and primarily features articles written by historians, law professors and political scientists.

Shelden was formally recognized during the society’s annual meeting at the Supreme Court. Retired Justice Stephen Breyer presented the award to Shelden, who met several current members of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, at the reception that followed.

The award came with a $1,500 prize and a ceremonial pen. In addition, Shelden was interviewed by journal editor Timothy Huebner.

“It was a fascinating experience, and it was very cool to receive the award from former Justice Breyer,” Shelden said. “It’s also an honor to be in the company of other historians who’ve received the award.”

Shelden’s article delves into the story of Supreme Court Justices John McLean and Levi Woodbury, who both ran for the presidency in 1848 and came close to receiving the nominations of three different parties — Democratic, Whig and Free Soil.

“There was a groundswell of excitement from people about these two justices running for president,” said Shelden, a specialist in 19th century political, cultural and constitutional history. “These justices were not breaking any norms — it was quite normal for them to be considered worthy candidates. Thousands of Americans saw them as good presidential contenders, often because of their judicial experience, not in spite of it. Understanding why justices received this kind of support requires rethinking not only the relationship between justices and partisan politics but the entire political landscape of the 19th century.”

Political parties, Shelden added, simply did not work the same way then as they do today.

“Today we generally expect that our parties to be permanent — at least that has been our experience for several generations,” she said. “But in the 19th century, parties were constantly in flux. That fluid partisan atmosphere helped to create a different relationship between judges and politics from our modern standards. As L.P. Hartley said, ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.’ And when it came to politics, the justices really did do things differently then.”

Shelden is exploring 19th century justices’ deep involvement in partisan politics more closely in her current book project, “The Political Supreme Court,” which will be published by the University of North Carolina Press. She was inspired to pursue the topic while researching her first book, “Washington Brotherhood: Politics, Social Life, and the Coming of the Civil War” (University of North Carolina Press, 2013), which received honorable mention for the Wiley-Silver Prize for best first book on the U.S. Civil War.

Shelden spent the past year on sabbatical working on “The Political Supreme Court,” thanks to a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In addition, she received further support via the James C. Rees Fellowship on the Leadership of George Washington at the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon.

“Today, the legitimacy of the court is very tied up in its power,” Shelden said. “The more people believe that the court is apolitical, the more they think it’s legitimate, and as a result the more power the court has. But the court has always been political, and exposing that political nature is important because the court’s increasing power comes at the expense of the democratic branches of government.”

“People often assume that the Supreme Court has always had this much power, but the court was not nearly as powerful then as it is today,” Shelden added. “Instead, the justices were much more involved in the political process in other ways. Much of my research looks at how 19th century Americans conceived of the role of members of the Supreme Court in their political world, particularly at a time when the court was not necessarily considered the final constitutional authority. Today, though, we as a society have accepted the idea that the justices have final say over what the Constitution means. And that gets to bigger questions, like, ‘What is the court?’ and ‘What is its relationship to government and democracy?’ and ‘What is the average person’s role in the process?’”

Shelden will return to University Park in the fall to resume her teaching and administrative duties at the Richards Center, which is dedicated to scholarship examining the role of the Civil War as a fundamental struggle over the intersections of race, slavery and democracy. Since Shelden assumed the director’s position in 2019, the center has expanded its programming and given numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows the chance to pursue their research and find their footing in academia.

The approach seems to be working well, as the center has placed 100% of the postdocs who sought academic jobs in tenure-track positions, Shelden proudly noted.

“Having the chance to focus on my book project has been spectacular, because good history generally takes time, especially when you’re working with 19th century documents,” she said. “That said, I’m excited to be back at the helm of the Richards Center. I love working with so many young scholars and watching them thrive in the field of Civil War-era studies.”