The Legacy of Robert H. Jackson (2004)

Robert H. Jackson was a country lawyer from upstate New York who rose to be an international advocate of distinguished accomplishment. He became one of the most famous trial lawyers in the Jamestown (N.Y.) area. As a young man he did not have the benefit of a college degree, but he did attend Albany Law School, which granted him a certificate in 1912. He was, without question, one of the most distinguished members of the United States Supreme Court and was one of the finest writers on the Court. He was also witty and wrote many witticisms which are still quoted by the Court. Jackson was a man of courage. After suffering a heart attack, he left the hospital and went directly to Court so that the entire Supreme Court could be present while Chief Justice Warren announced the unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education. He was criticized for accepting President Truman's appointment as the American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. John W. Davis, however, said that he thought Jackson's opening and closing addresses were among the finest examples of advocacy he had ever seen. Jackson had an attitude of calmness and fairness regardless of race, color, or creed. Even in his famous dispute with Justice Black he did not resort to sarcasm or antagonism. Jackson was highly regarded by President Roosevelt, who appointed him Attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, Solicitor General, Attorney General and finally Justice of the United States Supreme Court. One of the attractive things about the Justice was his way of speaking to people, either publicly or socially. Having had the pleasure of dining with him and his secretary, Mrs. Elsie Douglas, and my assistant, Mrs. Lorraine Wagner, on several occasions while writing his biography, we learned that he had a personality without thorns. He had a very gracious smile. He never put on airs for the ladies or others. He was content to be himself. Jackson was not afraid to show his good humor in judicial opinions. One of his favorite quotations was: We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final. (1) Jackson is also widely quoted for his opinion in Massachusetts v. United States: see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday. (2) Like President Ronald Reagan, Jackson operated on principles, not on the basis of public opinion polls. From his early background, he operated on the basis of the fundamental principles he admired and lived by. For example, he believed that democracy should be political. He said, That, I submit, is the true American way of life--that habit of thinking things and not words, that emphasis on results--concrete results for our people. (3) He liked to quote Maury Maverick who expressed it quaintly, but clearly, when he said, We Americans want to pray, think as we please--and eat regular. (4) Jackson did not believe, as many Democrats do, that the centralization of government in Washington is necessarily the right answer to America's future. Like a good trial lawyer, he said: Let us face the facts. In this sense, Jackson could be said to be a conservative. He was trying to conserve the democracy he had inherited for the future generations of Americans. Jackson was not in favor of paying Americans to vote. Much of Jackson's protection for future Americans came from public-spirited lawyers. He believed that lawyers play a vital role in preserving American democracy. Lawyers have the education and the public background to teach the fundamentals on which American democracy is based. With his pungent witticisms he said: The soap box is a better line of defense for democracy than a Siberia. (5) He felt that dictators are often deceived by their own bureaucratic staff that they have suppressed in order to maintain power. For this reason, Jackson was a great believer in the American free public school system. …