Robert Jackson citations (96 citations, Page 3)

The bolded section is often incorrectly reported as "The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish".
78 U.S. 94-95
Judicial opinions, United States v. Ballard (1944)

“It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it.”

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Robert H. Jackson

New York Times Obituary (October 10, 1954)

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

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)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

319 U.S. 641
Judicial opinions, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Dissenting in Mercoid Corporation v. Mid-Continent Investment Co., 320 U.S. 661, 679 (1944)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Reported in Eugene Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson (1958), p. 289

“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 their habits 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…"”

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Robert H. Jackson

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.
Summation for the Prosecution, July 26, 1946
Quotes from the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946)

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 396 (1951)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 537 (1953) (concurring)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

United States v. Public Utilities Commission, 345 U.S. 295, 319 (1953) (concurring)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Helvering v. Griffiths, 318 U.S. at 400-401 (1943).
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611, 639-40 (1948) (dissenting)
Judicial opinions

“The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Stein v. New York, 346 U.S. 156, 184 (1953)
Judicial opinions

“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”

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Robert H. Jackson

Quoted by Z. Chafee Jr. Atlantic Monthly (January 1955)

“But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 345 U.S. 514, 525 (1953)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

319 U.S. 636
Judicial opinions, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

“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."”

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Robert H. Jackson

Regarding persons employed by the government. Frazier v. United States, 335 U.S. 497, 515 (1948)
Judicial opinions

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

319 U.S. 640-641
Judicial opinions, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

“Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.”

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Robert H. Jackson

319 U.S. 641
Judicial opinions, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Describing the unsung heroes of legal practice. "Tribute to Country Lawyers: A Review", 30 A.B.A Journal 139 (1944)

“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.”

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Robert H. Jackson

Statement by Justice Jackson on War Trials Agreement http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/imt/jack02.htm (12 August 1945)
Quotes from the Nuremberg Trials (1945-1946)