John Marshall Harlan was a man of many contradictions. He was an opponent of chattel slavery, and against Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Raised in household where slave labor was the norm; he was personally against "the peculiar institution". At the same time, he opposed the abolition movement. He is often called "The Great Dissenter" due to his many dissenting opinions in cases that restricted civil liberties, notably Plessy v. Ferguson and Giles v. Harris. As the