Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes |
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14th Amendment 1st Amendment 5th Amendment action Adair alleged applied argument attempt boycott Child Labor Law Commerce Clause common law Company Congress constitutionality contempt corporations crime criminal decided declared definition dissenting opinion doctrine doubt due process employer Espionage Act evil exercise expressed fact Federal Court Frohwerk fundamental ground guarantees Habeas Corpus Hammond Packing Co held Holmes dissenting individual intent interpretation interstate commerce judge judgment jurisdiction jury Justice Holmes says justified Kansas labor union Law Rev legislature liability liberty of contract limit Lochner logical lower court majority opinion Mass Massachusetts matter meaning ment necessity Northern Securities OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES plaintiff in error police power practical precedent present principles privilege process of law prohibition prosecution provisions public policy punish question railroad reason regulate require Schenck Sherman Act shipment statement statute Supreme Court theory tice Holmes tion trial unconstitutional United upholding Waterman Pen words
Popular passages
Page 45 - General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise.
Page 101 - But the prohibition of compelling a man in a criminal court to be a witness against himself is a prohibition of the use of physical or moral compulsion to extort communications from him, not an exclusion of his body as evidence when it may be material.
Page 45 - I think that the word liberty in the Fourteenth Amendment is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law.
Page 42 - This case is decided upon an economic theory which a large part of the country does not entertain. If it were a question whether I agreed with that theory, I should desire to study it further and long before making up my mind. But I do not conceive that to be my duty, because I strongly believe that my agreement or disagreement has nothing to do with the right of a majority to embody their opinions in law.
Page 61 - I do not think the United States would come to an end if we lost our power to declare an Act of Congress void. I do think the Union would be imperiled if we could not make that declaration as to the laws of the several States. For one in my place sees how often a local policy prevails with those who are not trained to national views and how often action is taken that embodies what the Commerce Clause was meant to end.
Page 58 - ... to regulate. It may carry out its views of public policy whatever indirect effect they may have upon the activities of the States. Instead of being encountered by a prohibitive tariff at her boundaries the State encounters the public policy of the United States which it is for Congress to express. The public policy of the United States is shaped with a view to the benefit of the nation as a whole.
Page 15 - The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.
Page 74 - It may be said in a general way that the police power extends to all the great public needs. ... It may be put forth in aid of what is sanctioned by usage, or held by the prevailing morality or strong and preponderant opinion to be greatly and immediately necessary to the public welfare.
Page 35 - The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same...
Page 90 - In this case sentences of twenty years imprisonment have been imposed for the publishing of two leaflets that I believe the defendants had as much right to publish as the Government has to publish the Constitution of the United States now vainly invoked by them...