Senator Eagleton

Thomas F. Eagleton Teacher
by Joel K. Goldstein, Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law

It was not difficult to persuade Tom Eagleton to teach a seminar on the Presidency and the Constitution at the School of Law with me.

He loved the subject matter. “Separation of powers is the hottest topic in the legal world today,” he said more than once. He had thought about that subject during his adult life and had committed much of his time in the United States Senate to trying to draw, and enforce, appropriate boundaries on presidential power. And he was alarmed by what he saw as the abuses of power of the Bush Administration.

He also had a strong attachment to the law school. His father, Mark D. Eagleton, was one of the School’s most distinguished graduates. He had talked his way into the evening program in 1913 as a 19-year-old without a high school diploma and later became one of St. Louis’ most able and successful attorneys. Tom Eagleton revered his father and honored his memory in part by establishing a scholarship in his father’s name at the School and by funding the Mark D. Eagleton classroom where some of his father’s pictures and certificates are displayed.

Finally, Tom Eagleton loved to teach — not only for the opportunity to think and talk about challenging issues, but also because it brought him into contact with a new generation of lawyers.

His hearing, or lack thereof, was the only impediment to a return to the classroom. But once a wise person suggested a court reporter and computer screen as the remedy, that disability vanished and Eagleton became Eagleton, full of energy, ideas and humor. Beginning in the fall of 2005, he would arrive Mondays before 4 p.m. often with a quip at his (or my) expense. He would usually come armed with copies of some reading he wanted to share with the class — a recent article about the war in Iraq or by Judge Richard Posner or a chapter from a new book by his friend, former Senator Jack Danforth. He would toss his suit jacket to the seat behind him and take his place at the middle of the table in the Jury Room next to the court reporter. He seemed to gain energy from the students in the room. When he was not speaking, he would follow the conversation on the screen in front of him before offering the most memorable comments and questions of the day’s session. 

The events of his time came alive as he shared episodes from the Senate chambers or Washington salons. When we discussed how the Senate should scrutinize a Supreme Court nominee, he told of his colleague, Senator William Spong of Virginia, who lost his seat in part because he voted against Richard Nixon’s nominee, Judge G. Harold Carswell. “He isn’t fit, Tom,” Spong concluded after reading Carswell’s opinions. Eagleton agreed that Carswell lacked the distinction and ethics to sit on the Supreme Court (another colleague, Roman Hruska disagreed; sure Carswell was mediocre, he said, but there were a lot of mediocre people and lawyers who deserved representation on the high court). When Watergate was our topic, Eagleton told of his experience during the Saturday Night Massacre when Nixon ordered independent counsel Archibald Cox fired. After receiving a phone call that night, the Eagletons’ host, a Newsweek editor, left a dinner party full of prominent Senators and their spouses to hurry to his office to report on that assault on the rule of law. When we talked about the infamous Korematsu decision, Eagleton told of his private audience with Justice William Douglas in the early 1970s. “What was the biggest mistake of your career?” Eagleton asked. Voting to uphold the conviction in Korematsu, replied the aging jurist without hesitation.

Eagleton did not tell his war stories just to entertain and certainly not to impress. He used them to illustrate how government worked and how politicians approached problems, and to provide the context for the great issues of presidential power and separation of powers.

In fact, Eagleton did not bring to life just the events he witnessed or helped shape. He made Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln vivid, too. He could do so because he knew their histories and understood their profession. He combined a scholar’s knowledge and critical rigor with a practical sense of how the world and its political institutions and politicians work.

Eagleton communicated his passion for constitutional principle. It became most evident when he would discuss the constitutional allocation of the War Powers between Congress and the President. He would take the class through the relevant pieces of constitutional text and history, through the agony of Vietnam and the Senate politics in the early 1970s, to his decision to introduce, with Senator John Stennis and Senator Jacob Javits, the War Powers Resolution to include Congress in a meaningful way in the decision to go to war (Stennis’ participation gave clout to a couple of Senate liberals, he explained). Yet when the House-Senate conference adopted the House’s weak version, Eagleton opposed the measure because he thought Congress had abdicated its constitutional role.  Much to Eagleton’s chagrin, the Senate’s other liberals supported the weakened measure, in some cases because they saw it as an opportunity to embarrass Nixon. “You know this bill is unconstitutional. Why are you voting for it?” Eagleton asked one Democratic colleague.  “Tom, I love the Constitution. But I hate Nixon more,” his friend replied.

In Eagleton’s class one saw that constitutional abstractions do not alone dictate results. He taught constitutional principle but he also demonstrated how, at times, it must be shaped to achieve practical, but just, results in a world in which competing agendas and consideration must be addressed and often accommodated. For him separation of powers was not an esoteric exercise but a way to address national and international issues in a more satisfactory fashion. The real-world applications of these principles became a staple of the discussion. 

A true democrat, Eagleton refused to commit to teach the course a second time until he saw the course evaluations. He instructed me to include a separate question on the evaluation form: “Did Eagleton add anything?” I refashioned his suggestion to a formulation Dr. Gallup would find more acceptable. The returns were overwhelmingly positive, with virtually all students giving him their very highest rating. “Senator Eagleton provided wonderful insight and guidance,” wrote one student. “It was such a privilege to get to speak one-on-one with Senator Eagleton,” said another. “Senator Eagleton’s comments were very valuable, and so was his humor,” wrote the most perceptive evaluator.

Eagleton cared what the students thought because he cared about them as human beings. Even more than Eagleton was teaching his subject, he was teaching his students. He wanted them to engage the issues of our times, and wanted to help them along their professional path whenever he could. He probably wrote more letters of recommendation than some full-time faculty, often without informing his beneficiaries of his acts on their behalf. Ultimately, his humanity was the overriding element he brought as a teacher.

The students can judge a real McCoy and they recognized that they had encountered someone special. The day after his death, one student wrote, “Senator Eagleton was obviously passionate about his civic duty and his responsibility to the people of Missouri and his country. It was also obvious that he wanted to instill into us this same passion.” Another wrote,  “It was an honor to sit in the same room with him and discuss major constitutional issues of our time.” A third observed, “It is a testament to his character that he missed only one class even though the papers say he had been ill for several months.” A fourth: “He was such a gem.”

Eagleton’s close friend and former aide, Mark Abels, ended his eulogy by saying: “What a life. What a loss. What a friend.” 

To which I would only add: And what a teacher! Of us all.