Mr oliver wendell holmes biography

He departed from precedent to recognize workers' right to organize trade unions and to strike, as long as no violence was involved, and coercion was not exerted through impermissible means such as secondary boycotts, stating in his opinions that fundamental fairness required that workers be allowed to combine to compete on an equal footing with employers.

He continued to give speeches and to write articles that added to or extended his work on the common law, most notably "Privilege, Malice and Intent", [ 32 ] in which he presented his view of the pragmatic basis of the common-law privileges extended to speech and the press, which could be defeated by a showing of malice, or of specific intent to harm.

Famously, he observed in McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford that a policeman "may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman". Soon after the death of Associate Justice Horace Gray in July , President Theodore Roosevelt made known his intention to appoint Holmes as Gray's successor; it was the president's stated desire to fill the vacancy with someone from Massachusetts.

Hoar was a strenuous opponent of imperialism, and the legality of the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines was expected to come before the Court. Lodge, like Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of imperialism, which Holmes was expected to support as well. Despite Hoar's opposition, the president moved ahead on the matter. On December 2, , he formally submitted the nomination and Holmes was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 4.

On the bench, Holmes did vote to support the administration's position favoring the annexation of former Spanish colonies in the " Insular Cases ". However, he later disappointed Roosevelt by dissenting in Northern Securities Co. United States , a major antitrust prosecution; [ 38 ] the majority of the court opposed Holmes and sided with Roosevelt's belief that Northern Securities violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Holmes was known for his pithy, frequently quoted opinions. In more than twenty-nine years on the Supreme Court bench, he ruled on cases spanning the whole range of federal law. He is remembered for prescient opinions on topics as varied as copyright law, the law of contempt, the antitrust status of professional baseball, and the oath required for citizenship.

Holmes, like most of his contemporaries, viewed the Bill of Rights as codifying privileges obtained over the centuries in English and American common law, and he established that view in numerous opinions for the Court. He is considered one of the greatest judges in American history and embodies for many the traditions of the common law.

A eugenicist, he authored the majority opinion upholding forced sterilization. From the departure of William Howard Taft on February 3, , until Charles Evans Hughes became chief justice on February 24, , Holmes briefly acted as the chief justice and presided over court sessions. Beginning with his first opinion for the Court in Otis v.

Parker , Holmes exhibited his tendency to defer to legislatures, which two years later he did most famously in his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York In Otis v. Parker , the Court, in an opinion by Holmes, upheld the constitutionality of a California statute that provided that "all contracts for the sales of shares of the capital stock of any corporation or association on margin, or to be delivered at a future day, shall be void But general propositions do not carry us far.

While the courts must exercise a judgment of their own, it by no means is true that every law is void which may seem to the judges who pass upon it excessive, unsuited to its ostensible end, or based upon conceptions of morality with which they disagree. Considerable latitude must be allowed for differences of view If the state thinks that an admitted evil cannot be prevented except by prohibiting a calling or transaction not in itself necessarily objectionable, the courts cannot interfere, unless In his dissenting opinion in Lochner v.

New York , Holmes supported labor, not out of sympathy for workers, but because of his tendency to defer to legislatures. In Lochner , the Court struck down a New York statute that prohibited employees spelled "employes" at the time from being required or permitted to work in a bakery more than sixty hours a week. The majority found that the statute "interferes with the right of contract between the employer and employes", and that the right of contract, though not explicit in the Constitution, "is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the Fourteenth Amendment", under which no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Herbert Spencer 's Social Statics ", which advocates laissez faire. In a series of opinions surrounding the World War I Espionage Act of and the Sedition Act of , Holmes held that the freedom of expression guaranteed by federal and state constitutions simply declared a common-law privilege for speech and the press, even when those expressions caused injury, but that the privilege could be defeated by a showing of malice or intent to do harm.

Holmes came to write three unanimous opinions for the Supreme Court that arose from prosecutions under the Espionage Act because in an earlier case, Baltzer v. United States , he had circulated a powerfully expressed dissent, when the majority had voted to uphold a conviction of immigrant socialists who had circulated a petition criticizing the draft.

Apparently learning that he was likely to publish this dissent, the government perhaps alerted by Justice Louis D. Brandeis , newly appointed by President Woodrow Wilson abandoned the case, and it was dismissed by the Court. The chief justice then asked Holmes to write opinions that could be unanimous, upholding convictions in three similar cases, where there were jury findings that speeches or leaflets were published with an intent to obstruct the draft, a crime under the law.

Although there was no evidence that the attempts had succeeded, Holmes, in Schenck v. United States , held for a unanimous Court that an attempt, purely by language, could be prosecuted if the expression, in the circumstances in which it was uttered, posed a "clear and present danger" that the legislature had properly forbidden. In his opinion for the Court, Holmes famously declared that the First Amendment would not protect a person "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic".

Later in , however, in Abrams v. United States , Holmes dissented. The Wilson Administration was vigorously prosecuting those suspected of sympathies with the recent Russian Revolution , as well as opponents of the war against Germany. The defendants in this case were socialists and anarchists, recent immigrants from Russia who opposed the apparent efforts of the United States to intervene in the Russian Civil War.

They were charged with violating the Sedition Act of , which was an amendment to the Espionage Act of that made criticisms of the government or the war effort a crime. Abrams and his co-defendants were charged with distributing leaflets one in English and one in Yiddish that called for a "general strike" to protest the U. A majority of the Court voted to uphold the convictions and sentences of ten and twenty years, to be followed by deportation, while Holmes dissented.

The majority claimed to be following the precedents already set in Schenck and the other cases in which Holmes had written for the Court, but Holmes insisted that the defendants' leaflets neither threatened to cause any harm nor showed a specific intent to hinder the war effort. In his Abrams dissent, Holmes did elaborate somewhat on the decision in Schenck , roughly along the lines that Chafee had suggested.

Although Holmes evidently believed that he was adhering to his own precedent, some later commentators accused Holmes of inconsistency, even of seeking to curry favor with his young admirers. By contrast, the Supreme Court's current formulation of the clear and present danger test, stated in in Brandenburg v. Ohio , holds that "advocacy of the use of force or of law violation" is protected by the First Amendment "unless such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action".

In Silverthorne Lumber Co. United States , Holmes ruled that any evidence obtained, even indirectly, from an illegal search was inadmissible in court. He reasoned that otherwise, police would have an incentive to circumvent the Fourth Amendment to obtain derivatives of the illegally obtained evidence. This later became known as the " fruit of the poisonous tree " doctrine.

In , Holmes wrote the 8—1 majority opinion in Buck v. Bell , a case that upheld the Virginia Sterilization Act of and the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck , who was claimed to be mentally defective. Later scholarship has shown that the suit was collusive, in that "two eugenics enthusiasts Holmes repeated familiar arguments that statutes would not be struck down if they appeared on their face to have a reasonable basis.

In support of his argument that the interest of "public welfare" outweighs the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued:. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence.

It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Sterilization rates under eugenics laws in the United States climbed from until Skinner v.

Oklahoma , U. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an Oklahoma statute that provided for the sterilization of "habitual criminals". Bell continues to be cited occasionally in support of due process requirements for state interventions in medical procedures. Bell to protect the constitutional rights of a woman coerced into sterilization without procedural due process.

Bell , for performing an involuntary sterilization. Bell was also cited briefly, though not discussed, in Roe v. Wade , in support of the proposition that the Court does not recognize an "unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases". Bell has not been overturned, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case out of existence".

From his earliest writings, Holmes demonstrated a lifelong belief that the decisions of judges were consciously or unconsciously result-oriented and reflected the mores of the class and society from which judges were drawn. In his book The Common Law , [ 6 ] Holmes argued that legal rules are not deduced through formal logic but rather emerge from an active process of human self-government.

Central to his thought was the notion that the law, as it had evolved in modern societies, was concerned with the material results of a defendant's actions. A judge's task was to decide which of two parties before him would bear the cost of an injury. Holmes argued that the evolving common law standard was that liability would fall upon a person whose conduct failed to reflect the prudence of a "reasonable man":.

If a death is caused by the act, he is guilty of murder. But if the workman has a reasonable cause to believe that the space below is a private yard from which everyone is excluded, and which is used as a rubbish-heap, his act is not blameworthy, and the homicide is a mere misadventure. This "objective standard" adopted by common-law judges, Holmes thought, reflected a shift in community standards , away from condemnation of a person's act toward an impersonal assessment of its value to the community.

In the modern world, the advances made in biology and the social sciences should allow a better conscious determination of the results of individual acts and the proper measure of liability for them. In , in The Common Law , Holmes brought together into a coherent whole his earlier articles and lectures concerning the history of the common law judicial decisions in England and the United States , which he interpreted from the perspective of a practicing lawyer.

What counted as law, to a lawyer, was what judges did in particular cases. Law was what the state would enforce, through violence if necessary; echoes of his experience in the Civil War were often present in his writings. Judges decided where and when the force of the state would be brought to bear, and judges in the modern world tended to consult facts and consequences when deciding what conduct to punish.

The decisions of judges, viewed over time, determined the rules of conduct and the legal duties by which all are bound. Judges did not and should not consult any external system of morality, certainly not a system imposed by a deity. Being a legal positivist , Holmes brought himself into constant conflict with scholars who believed that legal duties rested upon natural law , a moral order of the kind invoked by Christian theologians and other philosophic idealists.

Mr oliver wendell holmes biography

He believed instead "that men make their own laws; that these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and that judges are not independent mouthpieces of the infinite. His belief that law, properly speaking, was a set of generalizations from what judges had done in similar cases, determined his view of the Constitution of the United States.

As a justice of the U. Supreme Court, Holmes rejected the argument that the text of the Constitution should be applied directly to cases that came before the court, as if it were a statute. He shared with most of his fellow jurists the belief that the Constitution carried forward principles derived from the common law, principles that continued to evolve in American courts.

The text of the Constitution itself, as originally understood, was not a set of rules, but only a directive to courts to consider the body of the common law when deciding cases that arose under the Constitution. It followed that constitutional principles adopted from the common law were evolving, as the law itself evolved: "A word [in the Constitution] is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought".

The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas that have their essence in form, they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking the words and a dictionary but by considering their origin and the line of their growth. Holmes also insisted on the separation of "ought" and "is" , confusion of which he saw as an obstacle in understanding the realities of the law.

Nevertheless, in rejecting morality as a form of natural law outside of and superior to human enactments, Holmes was not rejecting moral principles that were the result of enforceable law: "The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. The practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens and good men.

When I emphasize the difference between law and morals I do so with reference to a single end, that of learning and understanding the law. George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen summarized Holmes's views this way: "Holmes was a cold and brutally cynical man who had contempt for the masses and for the progressive laws he voted to uphold Although Holmes did not dissent frequently—during his 29 years on the U.

Supreme Court, he wrote only 72 separate opinions, whereas he penned majority opinions—his dissents were often prescient and acquired so much authority that he became known as "The Great Dissenter". Chief Justice Taft complained that "his opinions are short, and not very helpful". United States and Lochner v. New York. Only Holmes's legal writings were readily available during his life and in the first years after his death, but he confided his thoughts more freely in talks, often to limited audiences, and more than two thousand letters that have survived.

Holmes's executor, John Gorham Palfrey, diligently collected Holmes's published and unpublished papers and donated them and their copyrights to Harvard Law School. Harvard Law Professor Mark De Wolfe Howe undertook to edit the papers and was authorized by the school to publish them and to prepare a biography of Holmes. Howe published several volumes of correspondence, beginning with Holmes's correspondence with Frederick Pollock , [ 69 ] [ 70 ] and a volume of Holmes's speeches, [ 71 ] before his untimely death.

Howe's work formed the basis of much subsequent Holmes scholarship. Holmes's speeches were divided into two groups: public addresses, which he gathered into a slim volume, regularly updated, that he gave to friends and used as a visiting card, and less formal addresses to men's clubs, dinners, law schools, and Twentieth Regiment reunions. They frequently advert to the Civil War and to death, and express a hope that personal sacrifice, however pointless it may seem, serves to advance the human race toward some as-yet unforeseen goal.

This mysterious purpose explained the commitment to duty and honor that Holmes felt deeply himself and that he thought was the birthright of a certain class of men. He grew up in affluent surroundings as the son of the famed author and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes. His mother, Amelia Lee Jackson, was a supporter of the abolitionist movement.

Holmes was educated in private schools before enrolling at Harvard College now Harvard University in With the outbreak of the Civil War in , he enlisted in the Union Army. Holmes served in the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an unit that was nicknamed "Harvard's Army. In , Holmes began his studies at Harvard Law School. He completed his degree in and passed the bar the following year, and soon began working as a lawyer.

In addition to his work in private practice, Holmes wrote numerous articles and essays on the law. He served as the editor of the American Law Review from to Returning to Harvard, Holmes also lectured on legal issues. In , he published The Common Law , which was a collection of his lectures and essays on the topic. Holmes joined the faculty at the Harvard Law School in , but he only taught for one semester.

In , Holmes was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He became the court's chief justice in Only such principles should be applied as the Court is prepared to maintain. This case involved sewage-polluted water. Even if the separate elements of a scheme are lawful, when they are bound together by a common intent as parts of an unlawful scheme to monopolize interstate commerce, the plan may make the parts unlawful.

The least pretentious picture has more originality in it than directories, which may be copyrighted. Get free summaries of new U. Supreme Court opinions delivered to your inbox! Selected Opinions by Justice Holmes: U. Kirby Lumber Co. Lucas v. Earl Topic: Taxes The tax law can tax salaries to those who earned them and provide that the tax cannot be escaped by anticipatory arrangements and contracts, however skillfully devised, to prevent the salary when paid from vesting even for a second in the person who earned it.

Buck v. Bell Topic: Due Process A state may provide for the sexual sterilization of inmates of institutions supported by the state who are found to be afflicted with a hereditary form of insanity or imbecility. Prestonettes, Inc. Coty Topic: Trademarks The ownership of a registered trademark consisting of a name designating the owner's goods generally does not carry with it a right to prohibit a purchaser who repacks and sells them with or without added ingredients from using the name on their own labels to show the true relation of the trademarked product to the article that they offer.

Moore v. Pennsylvania Coal Co. Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. National League of Professional Baseball Clubs Topic: Antitrust The business of providing public baseball games for profit between clubs of professional baseball players is not within the scope of the federal antitrust laws. Missouri v. Holland Topic: Powers of Congress Treaties made under the authority of the United States, along with the Constitution and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of the land.

Abrams v. Holmes dissent Topic: Free Speech It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion when private rights are not concerned. Debs v. Frohwerk v. Schenck v. Herbert v. Shanley Co. A Historical Timeline of the Court. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

He was graduated from Harvard College in He was wounded three times.