Page 62 - The First Fifty Years

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56 HOUSTON LAW REVIEW

importance. The Supreme Court of the United States seemed to
agree. In McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., the Court
cited Professor Buchanan for the proposition that

[c]onsistent with the views of its draftsman, and the
prevailing view in the Congress as to the reach of its powers
under the enforcement section of the Thirteenth
Amendment [citing to Quest here], the terms of the [Civil
Rights Act of 1866] prohibited any racial discrimination in
[the] . . . enforcement of contracts against whites as well as
nonwhites.90
Buchanan was in good company in McDonald. The Court cited
distinguished Yale constitutional historian Alexander Bickel in
the same note and for the same proposition. But second.
Years later, when asked to comment about the publication of
The Quest for Freedom, Professor Buchanan provided the
following commentary:
I had an awareness that by publishing those articles in the
Houston Law Review, that it would be helpful to the
Review. Of course, I had no idea I’d be fortunate enough to
be cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, but that was just icing
on the cake. Undeniably, that had to help the Law Review’s
reputation . . . [The Quest for Freedom] was actually a book
that I wrote, but we broke it down into articles to be
published serially, primarily in Volume 12, and the first
issue of Volume 13. . . . The Law Review graciously put
them all together in a binding so I would have the whole
book that I treasure and keep with me to this day. So, I
wanted to help and I thought it would help. Also, I wanted
to be able to work closely with the student editors, and to
have them right in the same building with me was a real
aid in terms of getting the work done and getting it
published. I knew I would always have instant
communication with the editors . . . , so there were a bundle
of reasons there why I thought it was appropriate and
helpful to the school and helpful to me to publish that book
in the Houston Law Review . . .91
Quite apart from its lasting relevance to American legal
scholarship, The Quest for Freedom “nicely” illustrates the
importance of G. Sidney Buchanan to the history of Houston Law
Review. In GSB, the Review found a critical bridge between the
“Texasness” of the early decades and its growing willingness to
tackle national and international legal and social issues in later
decades92—if for no other reason than that Sidney Buchanan
himself would continue to serve as faculty advisor to HLR well
into the Second Millennium.