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Robert H. Jackson

109 quotes

“The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it. It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. We could justify any censorship only when the censors are better shielded against error than the censored.”
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, 442-43 (1950)
“I think that, under our system, it is time enough for the law to lay hold of the citizen when he acts illegally, or in some rare circumstances when his thoughts are given illegal utterance. I think we must let his mind alone.”
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, 444 (1950)
“I am entitled to say of that opinion what any discriminating reader must think of it — that it was as foggy as the statute the [[Attorney General was asked to interpret.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reviewing a position that Jackson had taken as Attorney General, which he now felt should be overruled. McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U.S. 162, 176 (1950) (concurring)
“But an escape less self-depreciating was taken by Lord Westbury, who, it is said, rebuffed a barrister's reliance upon an earlier opinion of his Lordship: "I can only say that I am amazed that a man of my intelligence should have been guilty of giving such an opinion". If there are other ways of gracefully and good-naturedly surrendering former views to a better considered position, I invoke them all.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoting Lord Westbury. McGrath v. Kristensen, 340 U.S. 162, 178 (1950) (concurring)
“The petitioner's problem is to avoid Scylla without being drawn into Charybdis.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. v. Northwestern Public Service Co., 341 U.S. 246, 250 (1951)
“It is only the words of the bill that have presidential approval, where that approval is given. It is not to be supposed that in signing a bill the President endorses the whole Congressional Record.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 396 (1951)
“Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: United States v. Wunderlich, 342 U.S. 98, 103 (1951)
“Had the jury convicted on proper instructions it would be the end of the matter. But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 276 (U.S. 1952)
“We can afford no liberties with liberty itself.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: United States v. Spector, 343 US 169, 180 (1952) (dissenting)
“Nothing in our Constitution is plainer than that declaration of a war is entrusted only to Congress. Of course, a state of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration. But no doctrine that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment of the Nation's armed forces to some foreign venture.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) (concurring)
“No penance would ever expiate the sin against free government of holding that a President can escape control of executive powers by law through assuming his military role.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) (concurring)
“He who must search a haystack for a needle is likely to end up with the attitude that the needle is not worth the search.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 537 (1953) (concurring)
“Reversal by a higher court is not proof that justice is thereby better done. There is no doubt that if there were a super-Supreme Court, a substantial proportion of our reversals of state courts would also be reversed. We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 540 (1953) (concurring)
“We granted certiorari, and in this Court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 87 (1953)
“I should concur in this result more readily if the Court could reach it by analysis of the statute instead of by psychoanalysis of Congress. When we decide from legislative history, including statements of witnesses at hearings, what Congress probably had in mind, we must put ourselves in the place of a majority of Congressmen and act according to the impression we think this history should have made on them. Never having been a Congressman, I am handicapped in that weird endeavor. That process seems to me not interpretation of a statute but creation of a statute.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: United States v. Public Utilities Commission, 345 U.S. 295, 319 (1953) (concurring)
“But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 345 U.S. 514, 525 (1953)
“The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 184 (1953)
“Government of limited power need not be anemic government. Assurance that rights are secure tends to diminish fear and jealousy of strong government, and by making us feel safe to live under it makes for its better support.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition, as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I should say the defendants have done just that for which they are indicted. If I might agree to their conviction without creating a precedent, I cheerfully would do so. I can see in their teachings nothing but humbug, untainted by any trace of truth. But that does not dispose of the constitutional question whether misrepresentation of religious experience or belief is prosecutable; it rather emphasizes the danger of such prosecutions.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity, and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here, he is not law-abiding and well-disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion — except for the sect that can win political power.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If we concede to the State power and wisdom to single out "duly constituted religious" bodies as exclusive alternatives for compulsory secular instruction, it would be logical to also uphold the power and wisdom to choose the true faith among those "duly constituted." We start down a rough road when we begin to mix compulsory public education with compulsory godliness.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He loved his profession, he had a real sense of dedication to the administration of justice, he held his head high as a lawyer, he rendered and exacted courtesy, honor and straightforwardness at the Bar. He respected the judicial office deeply, demanded the highest standards of competence and disinterestedness and dignity, despised all political use of or trifling with judicial power, and had an affectionate regard for every man who filled the exacting prescription of the just judge. The law to him was like a religion, and its practice was more than a means of support; it was a mission. He was not always popular in his community, but he was respected. Unpopular minorities and individuals often found in him their only mediator and advocate. He was too independent to court the populace - he thought of himself as a leader and lawgiver, not a mouthpiece.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Describing the unsung heroes of legal practice. "Tribute to Country Lawyers: A Review", 30 A.B.A Journal 139 (1944)
“My philosophy has been and continues to be that [the Court] cannot and should not try to seize the initiative in shaping the policy of the law, either by constitutional interpretation or by statutory construction. While the line to be drawn between interpretation and legislation is difficult, and numerous dissents turn upon it, there is a limit beyond which the Court incurs the just charge of trying to supersede the law-making branches. Every Justice has been accused of legislating and every one has joined in that accusation of others. When the Court has gone too far, it has provoked reactions which have set back the cause it is designed to advance and has sometimes called down upon itself severe rebuke.”
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. 79
“The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous. He can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations. Or the prosecutor may choose a more subtle course and simply have a citizen's friends interviewed. The prosecutor can order arrests, present cases to the grand jury in secret session, and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial. He may dismiss the case before trial, in which case the defense never has a chance to be heard. Or he may go on with a public trial. If he obtains a conviction, the prosecutor can still make recommendations as to sentence, as to whether the prisoner should get probation or a suspended sentence, and after he is put away, as to whether he is a fit subject for parole. While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Your responsibility in your several districts for law enforcement and for its methods cannot be wholly surrendered to Washington, and ought not to be assumed by a centralized department of justice. It is an unusual and rare instance in which the local district attorney should be superseded in the handling of litigation, except where be requests help of Washington. It is also clear that with his knowledge of local sentiment and opinion, his contact with and intimate knowledge of the views of the court, and his acquaintance with the feelings of the group from which jurors are drawn, it is an unusual case in which his judgment should be overruled. Experience, however, has demonstrated that some measure of centralized control is necessary. In the absence of it different district attorneys were striving for different interpretations or applications of an act, or were pursuing different conceptions of policy. Also, to put it mildly, there were differences in the degree of diligence and zeal in different districts. To promote uniformity of policy and action, to establish some standards of performance, and to make available specialized help, some degree of centralized administration was found necessary.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a most important reason why the prosecutor should have, as nearly as possible, a detached and impartial view of all groups in his community. Law enforcement is not automatic. It isn't blind. One of the greatest difficulties of the position of prosecutor is that he must pick his cases, because no prosecutor can even investigate all of the eases in which he receives complaints. If the department of justice were to make even a pretense of reaching every probable violation of federal law, ten times its present staff would be inadequate. We know that no local police force can strictly enforce the traffic laws, or it would arrest half the driving population on any given morning, [sic!] What every prosecutor is practically required to do is to select the cases for prosecution and to select those in which the offense is the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm-in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In times of fear or hysteria· political, racial, religious, social, and economic groups, often from the best of motives, cry for the scalps of individuals or groups because they do not like their views. Particularly do we need to be dispassionate and courageous in those cases which deal with so called "subversive activities." They are dangerous to civil liberty because the prosecutor has no definite standards to determine what constitutes a "subversive activity," such as we have for murder or larceny. Activities which seem benevolent and helpful to wage earners, persons on relief, or those who are disadvantaged in the struggle for existence may be regarded as "subversive" by those whose property interests might be burdened or affected thereby. Those who are in office are apt to regard as "subversive" the activities of any of those who would bring about a change of administration. Some of our soundest constitutional doctrines were once punished as subversive. We must not forget that it was not so long ago that both the term "Republican" and the term "Democrat" were epithets with sinister meaning to denote persons of radical tendencies that were "subversive" of the order of things then dominant.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Another delicate task is to distinguish between the federal and the local in law-enforcement activities. We must bear in mind that we are concerned only with the prosecution of acts which the congress has made federal offenses. Those acts we should prosecute regardless of local sentiment, regardless of whether it exposes lax local enforcement, regardless of whether it makes or breaks local politicians. [...] In spite of the temptation to divert our power to local conditions where they have become offensive to our sense of decency, the only long-term policy that will save federal justice from being discredited by entanglements with local politics is that it confine itself to strict and impartial enforcement of federal law, letting the chips fall in the community where they may. Just as there should be no permitting of local considerations to stop federal enforcement, so there should be no striving to enlarge our power over local affairs and no use of federal prosecutions to exert an indirect influence that would be unlawful if exerted directly.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These men saw no evil, spoke none, and none was uttered in their presence. This claim might sound very plausible if made by one defendant. But when we put all their stories together, the impression which emerges of the Third Reich, which was to last a thousand years, is ludicrous. If we combine only the stories of the front bench, this is the ridiculous composite picture of Hitler's Government that emerges. It was composed of: A No. 2 man who knew nothing of the excesses of the Gestapo which he created, and never suspected the Jewish extermination programme although he was the signer of over a score of decrees which instituted the persecution of that race; A No. 3 man who was merely an innocent middleman transmitting Hitler's orders without even reading them, like a postman or delivery boy; A Foreign Minister who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy; A Field-Marshal who issued orders to the armed forces but had no idea of the results they would have in practice … … This may seem like a fantastic exaggeration, but this is what you would actually be obliged to conclude if you were to acquit these defendants. They do protest too much. They deny knowing what was common knowledge. They deny knowing plans and programmes that were as public as Mein Kampf and the Party programme. They deny even knowing the contents of documents which they received and acted upon. … The defendants have been unanimous, when pressed, in shifting the blame on other men, sometimes on one and sometimes on another. But the names they have repeatedly picked are Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, and Bormann. All of these are dead or missing. No matter how hard we have pressed the defendants on the stand, they have never pointed the finger at a living man as guilty. It is a temptation to ponder the wondrous workings of a fate which has left only the guilty dead and only the innocent alive. It is almost too remarkable. The chief villain on whom blame is placed — some of the defendants vie with each other in producing appropriate epithets — is Hitler. He is the man at whom nearly every defendant has pointed an accusing finger. I shall not dissent from this consensus, nor do I deny that all these dead and missing men shared the guilt. In crimes so reprehensible that degrees of guilt have lost their significance they may have played the most evil parts. But their guilt cannot exculpate the defendants. Hitler did not carry all responsibility to the grave with him. All the guilt is not wrapped in Himmler's shroud. It was these dead men whom these living chose to be their partners in this great conspiratorial brotherhood, and the crimes that they did together they must pay for one by one.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“It may well be said that Hitler's final crime was against the land he had ruled. He was a mad messiah who started the war without cause and prolonged it without reason. If he could not rule he cared not what happened to Germany. As Fritzsche has told us from the stand, Hitler tried to use the defeat of Germany for the self-destruction of the German people. He continued to fight when he knew it could not be won, and continuance meant only ruin... Hitler ordered everyone else to fight to the last and then retreated into death by his own hand. But he left life as he lived it, a deceiver; he left the official report that he had died in battle. This was the man whom these defendants exalted to a Fuhrer. It was they who conspired to get him absolute authority over all of Germany. And in the end he and the system they created for him brought the ruin of them all.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“Lying has always been a highly approved Nazi technique. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, advocated mendacity as a policy. … Nor is the lie direct the only means of falsehood. They all speak with a Nazi double meaning with which to deceive the unwary. In the Nazi dictionary of sardonic euphemisms "Final solution" of the Jewish problem was a phrase which meant extermination; "Special treatment" of prisoners of war meant killing; "Protective custody" meant concentration camp; "Duty labour" meant slave labour; and an order to "take a firm attitude" or "take positive measures" meant to act with unrestrained savagery. … Before we accept their word at what seems to be its face value, we must always look for hidden meanings. … Besides outright false statements and those with double meanings, there are also other circumventions of truth in the nature of fantastic explanations and absurd professions. … The record is full of other examples of dissimulations and evasions. Even Schacht showed that he, too, had adopted the Nazi attitude that truth is any story which succeeds. Confronted on cross-examination with a long record of broken vows and false words, he declared in justification — and I quote from the record: "I think you can score many more successes when you want to lead someone if you don't tell them the truth than if you tell them the truth." This was the philosophy of the National Socialists. When for years they have deceived the world, and masked falsehood with plausibilities, can anyone be surprised that they continue that habit of a lifetime in this dock? Credibility is one of the main issues of this trial. Only those who have failed to learn the bitter lessons of the last decade can doubt that men who have always played on the unsuspecting credulity of generous opponents would not hesitate to do the same now. It is against such a background that these defendants now ask this Tribunal to say that they are not guilty of planning, executing, or conspiring to commit this long list of crimes and wrongs. They stand before the record of this Trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain king. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: "Say I slew them not." And the Queen replied, "Then say they were not slain. But dead they are..." If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
“For over a century it has been the settled doctrine of the Supreme Court that the principle of stare decisis has only limited application in constitutional cases. It might be thought that if any law is to be stabilized by a court decision it logically should be the most fundamental of all law -- that of the Constitution. But the years brought about a doctrine that such decisions must be tentative and subject to judicial cancellation if experience fails to verify them. The result is that constitutional precedents are accepted only at their current valuation and have a mortality rate almost as high as their authors.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Korematsu was born on our soil, of parents born in Japan. The Constitution makes him a citizen of the United States by nativity and a citizen of California by residence. No claim is made that he is not loyal to this country. There is no suggestion that apart from the matter involved here he is not law abiding and well disposed. Korematsu, however, has been convicted of an act not commonly a crime. It consists merely of being present in the state whereof he is a citizen, near the place where he was born, and where all his life he has lived. A citizen's presence in this locality, however, was made a crime only if his parents were of Japanese birth. Had Korematsu been one of four - the others being, say, a German alien enemy, an Italian alien enemy, and a citizen of American-born ancestors, convicted of treason, but on parole - only Korematsu's presence would have violated the order. The difference between their innocence and his crime would result, not from anything he did, said, or thought, different than they, but only in that he was born of different racial stock. Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one's antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be visited upon him. But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign. If Congress in peace-time legislation should enact such a criminal law, I should suppose this Court would refuse to enforce it.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 242-45 (1944)
“[T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1947 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dissenting in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
“No one will question that this power is the most dangerous one to free government in the whole catalogue of powers. It usually is invoked in haste and excitement when calm legislative consideration of constitutional limitation is difficult. It is executed in a time of patriotic fervor that makes moderation unpopular. And, worst of all, it is interpreted by judges under the influence of the same passions and pressures. Always, as in this case, the Government urges hasty decision to forestall some emergency or serve some purpose and pleads that paralysis will result if its claims to power are denied or their confirmation delayed.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the "war power"; Woods v. Cloyd W. Miller Co., 333 U.S. 138, 146 (1948) (concurring)
“I cannot be brought to believe that this country will suffer if the Court refuses further to aggrandize the presidential office, already so potent and so relatively immune from judicial review, at the expense of Congress.But I have no illusion that any decision by this Court can keep power in the hands of Congress if it is not wise and timely in meeting its problems. A crisis that challenges the President equally, or perhaps primarily, challenges Congress. If not good law, there was worldly wisdom in the maxim attributed to Napoleon that "The tools belong to the man who can use them." We may say that power to legislate for emergencies belongs in the hands of Congress, but only Congress itself can prevent power from slipping through its fingers.The essence of our free Government is "leave to live by no man's leave, underneath the law" -- to be governed by those impersonal forces which we call law. Our Government is fashioned to fulfill this concept so far as humanly possible. The Executive, except for recommendation and veto, has no legislative power. The executive action we have here originates in the individual will of the President, and represents an exercise of authority without law. No one, perhaps not even the President, knows the limits of the power he may seek to exert in this instance, and the parties affected cannot learn the limit of their rights. We do not know today what powers over labor or property would be claimed to flow from Government possession if we should legalize it, what rights to compensation would be claimed or recognized, or on what contingency it would end. With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations. Such institutions may be destined to pass away. But it is the duty of the Court to be last, not first, to give them up.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) (concurring), at 654-655.
“Procedural fairness, if not all that originally was meant by due process of law, is at least what it most uncompromisingly requires. Procedural due process is more elemental and less flexible than substantive due process. It yields less to the times, varies less with conditions, and defers much less to legislative judgment. Insofar as it is technical law, it must be a specialized responsibility within the competence of the judiciary on which they do not bend before political branches of the Government, as they should on matters of policy which compromise substantive law. If it be conceded that in some way [that the agency could take the action it did], does it matter what the procedure is? Only the untaught layman or the charlatan lawyer can answer that procedure matters not. Procedural fairness and regularity are of the indispensable essence of liberty. Severe substantive laws can be endured if they are fairly and impartially applied. Indeed, if put to the choice, one might well prefer to live under Soviet substantive law applied in good faith by our common-law procedures than under our substantive law enforced by Soviet procedural practices. Let it not be overlooked that due process of law is not for the sole benefit of an accused. It is the best insurance for the Government itself against those blunders which leave lasting stains on a system of justice but which are bound to occur on ex parte consideration.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Shaughnessy v. United States ex rel Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 224–25 (1953)
“Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good, as well as by evil, men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, but, at other times and places, the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. As governmental pressure toward unity becomes greater, so strife becomes more bitter as to whose unity it shall be.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If religious liberty includes, as it must, the right to communicate such experiences to others, it seems to me an impossible task for juries to separate fancied ones from real ones, dreams from happenings, and hallucinations from true clairvoyance. Such experiences, like some tones and colors, have existence for one, but none at all for another. They cannot be verified to the minds of those whose field of consciousness does not include religious insight. When one comes to trial which turns on any aspect of religious belief or representation, unbelievers among his judges are likely not to understand, and are almost certain not to believe, him.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do not know what degree of skepticism or disbelief in a religious representation amounts to actionable fraud. James points out that "Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible." Belief in what one may demonstrate to the senses is not faith. All schools of religious thought make enormous assumptions, generally on the basis of revelations authenticated by some sign or miracle. The appeal in such matters is to a very different plane of credibility than is invoked by representations of secular fact in commerce. Some who profess belief in the Bible read literally what others read as allegory or metaphor, as they read Aesop's fables. Religious symbolism is even used by some with the same mental reservations one has in teaching of Santa Claus or Uncle Sam or Easter bunnies or dispassionate judges. It is hard in matters so mystical to say how literally one is bound to believe the doctrine he teaches, and even more difficult to say how far it is reliance upon a teacher's literal belief which induces followers to give him money.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The chief wrong which false prophets do to their following is not financial... But the real harm is on the mental and spiritual plane. There are those who hunger and thirst after higher values which they feel wanting in their humdrum lives. They live in mental confusion or moral anarchy, and seek vaguely for truth and beauty and moral support. When they are deluded and then disillusioned, cynicism and confusion follow. The wrong of these things, as I see it, is not in the money the victims part with half so much as in the mental and spiritual poison they get. But that is precisely the thing the Constitution put beyond the reach of the prosecutor, for the price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.”
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) said by 1954 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source