Current American problems with respect to the treatment of minority groups have led to the return to popularity of the terminology of a philosophy of inherent rights. Although in popular debates the concepts of “civil rights” and “basic rights” are used loosely, without much regard for a comprehensive jurisprudence, they recall a philosophy of law at odds with pragmatism, a philosophy whose roots go back to ancient Stoicism, and a philosophy consistently maintained and applied by a Justice of the Supreme Court, Stephen Johnson Field, during his thirty-four years on the highest court. In the currents of popular legal opinion a few decades ago, all notions of “rights” tended to be scorned by publicists in legal and political thought, in favor of the more factual studies of power and interest groups. This was done in the name of pragmatism and realism. Although such pragmatic thought continues to hold sway in the economic areas of law and politics, in the area of the law of persons there is a tension between recognition of group demands and formal, moral appeals to law and equality. And where the pragmatists and activists of a generation ago placed their hopes for progress on the flexibility of arbitration boards and administrative tribunals, the locus of hopes, power, and controversy has now shifted to the system of formal law and, in particular, to the Supreme Court. In this shift, the position of Justice Field has likewise shifted: anathema to the proponents of basing all law on considerations of economic interests, because of his “sterile formalism,” he has recently been quoted extensively by Chief Justice Warren in a crucial opinion, and if on the Court today, would be considered an “activist.”