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opinion by Justice Holmes, resoundingly slammed the door on this last possible opening. The uncertain, shifting, sharply contested possibilities that had characterized racial issues in the South on the eve of disfranchisement were now definitively closed. The white, reactionary, ruling elite, in the form of the one-party Democratic South, was in the saddle, and no national institution was prepared to do anything -rhetorically, culturally, politically, or legally -about it. Given that neither President nor Congress was willing by this time to take any initiative in defending the Fifteenth Amendment, itself the capstone of Reconstruction, Giles might well be said to mark the final moment in the demise of reconstruction These are the critical points in Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon. Professor Heckman's warm words for the quality of the historical work underlying those claims are much appreciated. But while he apparently accepts this broader historical analysis, Professor Heckman writes to argue that we should locate the Supreme Courts abnegation not in Giles, but in Mills v Green, eight years earlier. Perhaps one should not worry much about whether the Supreme Court's acceptance of disfranchisement, the subject of little scholarly analysis until now, is better identified with Mills or Giles. The aims of The Canon, after all, were to explore the relationship of law to culture and politics, to expose the Supreme Courts role in the national toleration of disfranchisement, and to bring issues of democracy-and the destruction of democracy through law -closer to the center of constitutional thought. The specific case that best illuminates these themes is, perhaps, of less significance than that the themes be illuminated. Nonetheless, I must insist that Professor Heckman has focused on the individual legal notes being played in Giles RichardH.Pildes,DemocracyAnti-democraCy,andtheCanon17consT.comm.295 (2000 4159U.S.651(1895) ! "A " <A " "#$ %& #&%?1-&##,%& . B* " * . * " " . 8 * 1 * + 0 0 + 0 " "* " < A 1 * "0 " * 0 7 "* * " " 7. * C+ ! 00 . + ) " * "" 0. * ! ! 00 /* 0 * * >* 0 . "! 0 * 0 * 1* * . " ".* $ # "" ! * 0 *. * 0 1* * " *.5 * 0". 0 $ " % ! " "0 6 0 * * " 6 1* * " . * 7 * * 07 * * . * " " .* 4 "D* ! * + * . "