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Robert H. Jackson
109 quotes
“The office of the lawyer, however poorly filled, is too delicate, personal and confidential to be occupied by a corporation.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1929 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Functions of the Trust Company in the Field of Law", 52 New York State Bar Association Report 142 (1929)
“Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly, what they really want when he says: 'We Americans want to talk, pray, think as we please — and eat regular'.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco (1939), reported in Eugene C. Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson (1958), p. 456
“Often his name was, in a generation or two, forgotten. It was from this brotherhood that America has drawn its statesmen and its judges. A free and self-governing Republic stands as a monument for the little-known and unremembered as well as for the famous men of our profession.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tribute to Country Lawyers: A Review", 30 A.B.A Journal 139 (1944)
“The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech and religion. In this field, every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516 (1945) p. 323 U. S. 545
“I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments in every case. First came the one I had planned – as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented – interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night…”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Advocacy Before the Supreme Court: Suggestions for Effective Case Presentations, 37 A.B.A Journal 801 (1951)
“On your first appearance before the Court, do not waste your time and ours telling us so. We are likely to discover for ourselves that you are a novice but will think none the less of you for it. Every famous lawyer had his first day at our bar, and perhaps a sad one…. Be respectful, of course, but also be self-respectful, and neither disparage yourself nor flatter the Justices. We think well enough of ourselves already.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Advocacy Before the Supreme Court: Suggestions for Effective Case Presentations, 37 A.B.A Journal 801 (1951)
“Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to wide and considered self-government.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted by Z. Chafee Jr. Atlantic Monthly (January 1955)
“When the Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably accounts for the high quality of early opinions.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Supreme Court in the American System of Government (1955), p. 30
“When we went to school we were told that we were governed by laws, not men. As a result of that, many people think there is no need to pay any attention to judicial candidates because judges merely apply the law by some mathematical formula and a good judge and a bad judge all apply the same kind of law. The fact is that the most important part of a judge's work is the exercise of judgment and that the law in a court is never better than the common sense judgment of the judge that is presiding.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Eugene Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson (1958), p. 289
“Something happens to a man when he puts on a judicial robe, and I think it ought to. The change is very great and requires psychological change within a man to get into an attitude of deciding other people's controversies, instead of waging them. It really calls for quite a changed attitude. Some never make it - and I am not sure I have.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1789 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reported in Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, 4 The Justices of the United States Supreme Court 1789-1969, 2563 (1969)
“These powers have been granted to our law-enforcement agencies because it seems necessary that such a power to prosecute be lodged somewhere. This authority has been granted by people who really wanted the right thing done- wanted crime eliminated-but also wanted the best in our American traditions preserved.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Because of this immense power to strike at citizens, not with mere individual strength, but with all the force of government itself, the post of federal district attorney from the very beginning has been safeguarded by presidential appointment, requiring confirmation of the senate of the United States. You are thus required to win an expression of confidence in your character by both the legislative and the executive branches of the government before assuming the responsibilities of a federal prosecutor.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing better can come out of this meeting of law enforcement officers than a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency that should animate the federal prosecutor. Your positions are of such independence and importance that while you are being diligent, strict, and vigorous in law enforcement you can also afford to be just. Although the government technically loses its case, it has really won if justice has been done.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a. judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the enforcement of laws that protect our national integrity and existence, we should prosecute any and every act of violation, but only overt acts, not the expression of opinion, or activities such as the holding of meetings, petitioning of congress, or dissemination of news or opinions. Only by extreme care can we protect the spirit as well as the letter of our civil liberties, and to do so is a responsibility of the federal prosecutor.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen's safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For a century every contest with the Supreme Court has ended in evading the basic inconsistency between popular government and judicial supremacy.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While the Declaration was directed against an excess of authority, the Constitution was directed against anarchy.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, such judicial misconstruction theoretically can be cured by constitutional amendment. But the period of gestation of a constitutional amendment, or of any law reform, is reckoned in decades usually; in years, at least. And, after all, as the Court itself asserted in overruling the minimum-wage cases, it may not be the Constitution that was at fault.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement (12 August 1945)
“The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945)
“If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner's dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945)
“We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening Address to the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials (10 November 1945)
“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: International Conference on Military Trials, London, 1945, Dept. of State Pub.No. 3080 (1949), p. 330
“Of one thing we may be sure. The future will never have to ask, with misgiving, what could the Nazis have said in their favor. History will know that whatever could be said, they were allowed to say. They have been given the kind of a Trial which they, in the days of their pomp and power, never gave to any man.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“The plans of Adolf Hitler for aggression were just as secret as Mein Kampf, of which over six million copies were published in Germany. He not only openly advocated overthrowing the Treaty of Versailles, but made demands which went far beyond a mere rectification of its alleged injustices (GB-128). He avowed an intention to attack neighboring states and seize their lands, which he said would have to be won with "the power of a triumphant sword." Here, for every German to hearken to, were the "ancestral voices prophesying war.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“Each of these men made a real contribution to the Nazi plan. Each man had a key part. Deprive the Nazi regime of the functions performed by a Schacht, a Sauckel, a Von Papen, or a Goering and you have a different regime. Look down the rows of fallen men and picture them as the photographic and documentary evidence shows them to have been in their days of power. Is there one who did not substantially advance the conspiracy along its bloody path toward its bloody goal? Can we assume that the great effort of these men's lives was directed toward ends they never suspected?”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Government to perform even a minimum of service to its people, must take steps to suppress avarice, to strike down privately built-up schemes of economic exploitation or oppression, to uproot privilege, and to assure justice and economic opportunity to the masses.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No longer may the head of a state consider himself outside of the law, and impose inhuman acts on the peoples of the world.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The power of citizenship as a shield against oppression was widely known from the example of Paul's Roman citizenship, which sent the centurion scurrying to his higher-ups with the message: "Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 182 (1941)
“The mere state of being without funds is a neutral fact — constitutionally an irrelevance, like race, creed, or color.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, 184 (1941)
“It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 131, 131 (1943)
“There is no reason to doubt that this Court may fall into error, as may other branches of the Government. Nothing in the history or attitude of this Court should give rise to legislative embarrassment if, in the performance of its duty, a legislative body feels impelled to enact laws which may require the Court to reexamine its previous judgments or doctrine. [Footnote 52] The Court differs, however, from other branches of the Government in its ability to extricate itself from error. It can reconsider.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Helvering v. Griffiths, 318 U.S. at 400-401 (1943).
“This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 181 (1943)
“Civil liberties had their origin and must find their ultimate guaranty in the faith of the people. If that faith should be lost, five or nine men in Washington could not long supply its want.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 182 (1943)
“As to ethics, the parties seem to me as much on a parity as the pot and the kettle. But want of knowledge or innocent intent is not ordinarily available to diminish patent protection.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting in Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U.S. 661, 679 (1944)
“A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U.S. 143, 161 (1944)
“The physical power to get the money does not seem to me a test of the right to tax. Might does not make right even in taxation. To hold that what the use of official authority may get the state may keep, and that if it cannot get hold of a nonresident stockholder it may hold the company as hostage for him, is strange constitutional doctrine to me.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: International Harvester Co. v. Wisconsin Dept. of Taxation, 322 U.S. 435, 450 (1944)
“I do not know whether it is the view of the Court that a judge must be thick-skinned or just thick-headed, but nothing in my experience or observation confirms the idea that he is insensitive to publicity. Who does not prefer good to ill report of his work? And if fame — a good public name — is, as Milton said, the "last infirmity of noble mind", it is frequently the first infirmity of a mediocre one.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Craig v. Harney, 331 U. S. 367, 396 (1947)
“The Court's reasoning adds up to this: The Commission must be sustained because of its accumulated experience in solving a problem with which it had never before been confronted! I give up. Now I realize fully what Mark Twain meant when he said, 'The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it.'”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: SEC v. Chenery Corporation, 332 U.S. 194, 213 (1947) (dissenting)
“Under these circumstances, except for any personal humiliation involved in admitting that I do not always understand the opinions of this Court, I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611, 639-40 (1948) (dissenting)
“But we have grounds to assume also that the normal proportion of them are subject to that very human weakness, especially displayed in Washington, which leads men to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Regarding persons employed by the government. Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497, 515 (1948)
“To bring in a lawyer means a real peril to solution of the crime because, under our adversary system, he deems that his sole duty is to protect his client—guilty or innocent—and that, in such a capacity, he owes no duty whatever to help society solve its crime problem. Under this conception of criminal procedure, any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect in no uncertain terms to make no statement to police under any circumstances.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Watts v. Indiana, 338 U.S. 49 (1949) (concurring in part and dissenting in part)
“This Court has gone far toward accepting the doctrine that civil liberty means the removal of all restraints from these crowds and that all local attempts to maintain order are impairments of the liberty of the citizen. The choice is not between order and liberty. It is between liberty with order and anarchy without either. There is danger that, if the Court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting in Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949); this has sometimes been paraphrased as The Bill of Rights is not a suicide pact.
“But when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not 'due process.'”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306 (1950)
“But we must not forget that in our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 438 (1950)
“Our protection against all kinds of fanatics and extremists, none of whom can be trusted with unlimited power over others, lies not in their forbearance but in the limitations of our Constitution.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: American Communications Association v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 439 (1950)