Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor.

GOULD IV, William B. [Ruth Bader Ginsburg].

$6,000.00

Item Number: 146285

Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.

First edition of this inspirational and thought-provoking family history, from the library of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Octavo, original red cloth, frontispiece portrait of William B. Gould in his veteran’s hat, illustrated with black and white photographs, charts, and maps. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page to associate justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “11/4/02 For Ruth, With deep appreciation for your fine work in Washington – this work began to gather steam when we were together at Harvard 30 years ago – Best wishes, Bill Gould.” American lawyer and jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020 and was responsible for some of the most eventful legal decisions of the past half-century. Nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to replace retiring justice Byron White, Ginsburg became the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court, after Sandra Day O’Connor. Ginsburg spent much of her legal career as an advocate for gender equality and women’s rights, winning many arguments before the Supreme Court. During her tenure as associate justice of the Supreme Court, Ginsburg received attention for her fiery and passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of the law. She was popularly dubbed “the Notorious R.B.G.”, a moniker she later embraced. She authored several important majority opinions related to gender discrimination, voting rights, and affirmative action in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996) which struck down the Virginia Military Institute’s  male-only admissions policy as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Olmstead v. L.C. (1999) in which the Court ruled that mental illness is a form of disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc. (2000) in which the Court held that residents have standing to seek fines for an industrial polluter that affected their interests and that is able to continue doing so. Gould became acquainted with Ginsburg upon visiting at Harvard in 1971 and ’72, after which Gould has said: “[We] kept in touch over the years when she was on the DC Circuit and the High Court. We exchanged correspondence and reprints over the years. When I was Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and living in Washington, Justice Ginsburg arranged for my Chief Counsel and me to sit in her special box whenever there was an oral argument before the Court involving my NLRB,” (Stanford Law Faculty on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Legacy). Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Very light bumping to the foot of the spine with a closed tear to the top edge of the rear panel. Matching closed tear to the rear panel of the dust jacket with an abrasion to the front panel of the dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional association.

William B. Gould IV is an American lawyer currently the Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School, the first black professor at Stanford Law School. His great-grandfather, William B. Gould was an escaped slave who served in the Union Navy during the United States Civil War. His diary is one of only a few written during the Civil War by a formerly enslaved person that has survived, and the only by a formerly enslaved sailor.