John Marshall and the genesis of the tradition -- Kent, Story, and Shaw : the judicial function and property rights -- Roger Taney and the limits of judicial power -- Political ideologies, professional norms, and the state judiciary in the late nineteenth century : Cooley and Doe -- John Marshall Harlan I : the precursor -- The tradition at the close of the nineteenth century -- Holmes, Brandeis, and the origins of judicial liberalism -- Hughes and Stone : ironies of the chief justiceship -- Personal versus impersonal judging : the dilemmas of Robert Jackson -- Cardozo, Learned Hand, and Frank : the dialectic of freedom and constraint -- Rationality and intuition in the process of judging : Roger Traynor -- The mosaic of the Warren Court : Frankfurter, Black, Warren, and Harlan -- The anti-judge: William O. Douglas and the ambiguities of individuality -- The Burger Court and the idea of "transition" in the American judicial tradition -- The unexpectedness of the Rehnquist Court -- The tradition and the future : a summary.