Robert H. Jackson (historian)

Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954. He had previously served as United States Solicitor General and United States Attorney General, and is the only person to have held all three of those offices. Jackson was also notable for his work as Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II.

Jackson was the last U.S. Supreme Court justice who did not have a law degree. He was admitted to the bar via the older tradition of reading law under an established lawyer, after studying at Albany Law School for just a year. Jackson is well known for his advice that, "Any lawyer worth his salt will tell the suspect, in no uncertain terms, to make no statement to the police under any circumstances", and for his aphorism describing the Supreme Court, "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final." Jackson developed a reputation as one of the best writers on the Supreme Court and one of the most committed to enforcing due process as protection from overreaching federal agencies. He was viewed as a moderate liberal and is known for his dissents in ''Terminiello v. City of Chicago'', ''Zorach v. Clauson'', ''Everson v. Board of Education'', and ''Korematsu v. United States'', as well as his majority opinion in ''West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette''. Justice Antonin Scalia, who occupied the seat once held by Jackson, considered Jackson to be "the best legal stylist of the 20th century."

Early life

Jackson was born on his family's farm in Spring Creek Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania, on February 13, 1892, and was raised in Frewsburg, New York. The son of William Eldred Jackson and Angelina Houghwout, he graduated from Frewsburg High School in 1909 and spent the next year as a post-graduate student attending Jamestown High School, where he worked to improve his writing skills.

Jackson decided on a legal career; since attendance at college or law school was not a requirement if a student learned under the tutelage of an established attorney, at age 18 he began to study law with the Jamestown, New York firm in which his uncle, Frank Mott, was a partner. His uncle soon introduced him to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was then serving as a member of the New York State Senate. Jackson attended Albany Law School of Union University from 1911 to 1912. At the time, students at Albany Law School had three options: taking individual courses without receiving a degree; completing a two-year program and receiving an LL.B. degree; or demonstrating the knowledge required of a first-year student and then taking the second year of the two-year program, which produced a certificate of completion. Jackson chose the third option; he successfully completed the second-year courses, and received his certificate in 1912.

After his year at Albany Law School, Jackson returned to Jamestown to complete his studies. He attained admission to the bar in 1913 at age twenty-one, then joined a law practice in Jamestown. In 1916, he married Irene Alice Gerhardt, in Albany. In 1917, Jackson was recruited to work for Penney, Killeen & Nye, a leading Buffalo firm, primarily defending the International Railway Company in trials and appeals. In late 1918, Jackson was recruited back to Jamestown to serve as the city's corporation counsel.

Over the next 15 years, he built a successful practice, and became a leading lawyer in New York State; he also enhanced his reputation nationally, through leadership roles with bar associations and other legal organizations. In 1930, Jackson was elected to membership in the American Law Institute; in 1933, he was elected Chairman of the American Bar Association's Conference of Bar Association Delegates (a predecessor to today's ABA House of Delegates).

Jackson became active in politics as a Democrat; in 1916, he spearheaded Jamestown's local Wilson for President organization. In the years during and after World War I, he was a member of the New York State Democratic Committee. He also continued his association with Roosevelt; when Roosevelt served as Governor of New York from 1929 to 1933, he appointed Jackson to a commission which reviewed the state judicial system and proposed reforms. He served on that commission from 1931 to 1939. Jackson also turned down Roosevelt's offer to appoint him to the New York Public Service Commission, because he preferred to remain in private practice.

Federal appointments, 1934–1938

In 1932, Jackson was active in Franklin Roosevelt's Presidential campaign as Chairman of an organization called Democratic Lawyers for Roosevelt. (Another Robert H. Jackson was also active in the Roosevelt campaign. That Jackson (1880-1973) was Secretary of the Democratic National Committee, and was a resident of New Hampshire.)

In 1934, Jackson agreed to join the Roosevelt administration; he served initially as Assistant General Counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue (today's Internal Revenue Service), where he was in charge of 300 lawyers who tried cases before the Board of Tax Appeals. In 1936, Jackson became Assistant Attorney General, heading the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, and in 1937, he became Assistant Attorney General, heading the Antitrust Division.

Jackson was a supporter of the New Deal, litigating against corporations and utilities holding companies. He participated in the 1934 prosecution of Samuel Insull, the 1935 income tax case against Andrew Mellon, and the 1937 anti-trust case against Alcoa, in which the Mellon family held an important interest.

U.S. Solicitor General, 1938–1940

In March 1938, Jackson became United States Solicitor General, succeeding Stanley Forman Reed, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court. Jackson served as Solicitor General until January 1940, working as the government's chief advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court. During his time in this post, he argued 44 cases to the Supreme Court on behalf of the federal government, and lost only six. His record of accomplishment caused Justice Louis Brandeis to once remark that Jackson should be Solicitor General for life.

Roosevelt regarded Jackson as a possible successor to the presidency in 1940, and worked with his staff on an effort to raise Jackson's public profile. Their plan was to mention Jackson favorably in presidential remarks as often as possible, and to have Jackson take part frequently in Roosevelt's public appearances. Roosevelt and his advisers next intended for Jackson to become the Democratic nominee for Governor of New York in 1938. They abandoned their effort to create a groundswell of support for Jackson's gubernatorial candidacy when they ran into resistance from state Democratic Party leaders. In addition, Roosevelt's decision to run for a third term in 1940 rendered moot the need to identify and promote a successor. Instead of running for Governor or President, Jackson joined Roosevelt's cabinet when he was appointed as Attorney General.

U.S. Attorney General, 1940–1941

Jackson was appointed as United States Attorney General by Roosevelt, on January 4, 1940, replacing Frank Murphy, whom Roosevelt had appointed to the Supreme Court. As Attorney General, Jackson supported a bill introduced by Sam Hobbs that would have legalized wiretapping by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any other government agency, if it was suspected that a felony was occurring. The bill was opposed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman James Lawrence Fly, and it did not pass. While in office, he also helped President Roosevelt organize the Lend-Lease agreement, which allowed the United States to supply materials to help with the war effort to the Allied forces, before formally entering World War II.

U.S. Supreme Court, 1941–1954

On June 12, 1941, Roosevelt nominated Jackson as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy created when Harlan Fiske Stone replaced Charles Evans Hughes as chief justice. Jackson was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 7, 1941, and took the judicial oath of office on July 11, 1941. On the Court, he was known for his eloquent writing style and championing of individual liberties.

In 1943, Jackson wrote the majority opinion in ''West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette'', which overturned a public school regulation making it mandatory to salute the flag, and imposing penalties of expulsion and prosecution upon students who failed to comply. Jackson's stirring language in ''Barnette'' concerning individual rights is widely quoted. Jackson's concurring opinion in 1952's '' Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer'' (forbidding President Harry Truman's seizure of steel mills during the Korean War to avert a strike), in which Jackson formulated a three-tier test for evaluating claims of Presidential power, remains one of the most widely cited opinions in Supreme Court history. (It was quoted repeatedly by Supreme Court nominees John Roberts and Samuel Alito during their confirmation hearings.)

Feud with Hugo Black

Justices Jackson and Hugo Black had profound professional and personal disagreements dating back to October 1941, the first term during which they served together on the Supreme Court. According to Dennis Hutchinson, editor of ''The Supreme Court Review'', Jackson objected to Black's practice of importing his personal preferences into his jurisprudence. Hutchinson quotes Jackson as having remarked, "With few exceptions, we all knew which side of a case Black would vote on when he read the names of the parties." While Hutchinson points out that Jackson objected to Black's style of jurisprudence in such cases as '' Minersville v. Gobitis'' (1940) and ''United States v. Bethlehem Steel'' (1942), Black's involvement in the ''Jewell Ridge'' case struck Jackson as especially injudicious.

In ''Jewell Ridge Coal Corp. v. Mine Workers'' (1945), the Supreme Court faced the issue of whether to grant the coal company's petition for a rehearing, on the grounds that the victorious miners were, in a previous matter, represented by Crampton P. Harris, who was Justice Black's former law partner and personal lawyer. Despite this apparent conflict of interest, Black lobbied the Court for a per curiam denial of the petition. Justice Jackson objected, with the result that Jackson filed a concurrence disassociating himself from the ruling and, by implication, criticizing Black for not addressing the conflict of interest. Jackson also strongly objected to Black's judicial conduct in ''Jewell Ridge'' for another reason. As Jackson later alleged, while Justice Murphy was preparing his opinion, Black urged that the Court hand down its decision without waiting for the opinion and dissent. In Jackson's eyes, the "...only apparent reason behind this proposal was to announce the decision in time to influence the contract negotiations during the coal strike" between the coal company and the miners, which were taking place at the time.

Jackson probably regarded Black's conduct as unbecoming of a Supreme Court Justice in another related matter. On April 3, 1945, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare held a dinner, at which it honored Justice Black as the 1945 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award. Fred M. Vinson spoke at the dinner. While Jackson declined an invitation to the event, citing a conflict arising out of the fact that a number of leading sponsors of the dinner were then litigants before the Supreme Court, Black attended the dinner and received his award. Crampton Harris, counsel in two pending cases, ''Jewell Ridge'' and ''CIO v. McAdory'' (1945), was one of the sponsors.

Jackson later took these grievances public in two cables from Nuremberg. Jackson had informally been promised the Chief Justiceship by Roosevelt; however, the seat came open while Jackson was in Germany, and Roosevelt was dead. President Harry S. Truman was faced with two factions, one recommending Jackson for the seat, and the other advocating for Hugo Black. In an attempt to avoid controversy, Truman appointed Vinson. Jackson blamed machinations by Black for his being passed over for the seat, and publicly exposed some of Black's controversial behavior and feuding within the Court. The controversy was heavily covered in the press, casting the New Deal Court in a negative light, and had the effect of tarnishing Jackson's reputation in the years that followed.

On June 8, 1946, Jackson sent a cable to President Truman. Jackson's cable to Truman began with an insincere offer of congratulations to the President for his appointment of Vinson. However, the cable then quickly addressed the rumor, which Jackson had gotten wind of in Nuremberg, according to which Truman had appointed Fred Vinson, in part, to avert a resignation on the part of Justice Black. Rumors had been circulating in Washington that Black would resign in the event that Truman chose Jackson as Chief Justice Stone's successor. "I would be loath to believe that you would concede to any man a veto over court appointments." Jackson closed his cable by stating that he could not continue his service as an Associate Justice under Vinson if an associate "had something on im, which would disqualify him from serving, or if he, Truman, regarded Jackson's opinion in the ''Jewell Ridge'' case as a "gratuitous insult" to Justice Black.''Dennis v. United States''

After receiving a response from Truman in which he denied having given consideration to, or having even heard of, the rumor of Black's threatened resignation, Jackson rashly fired off a second cable to Congress, on June 10. This cable stated Jackson's reasons for his belief that Justice Black faced a conflict of interest in ''Jewell Ridge'', from which he wrongfully, at least, in Jackson's eyes, did not recuse himself, and ended with Jackson's threat that if such a practice "is ever repeated while I am on the bench, I will make my ''Jewell Ridge'' opinion look like a letter of recommendation by comparison."

Jackson and ''Dennis v. United States''

The "clear and present danger" test

In 1919, the Supreme Court decided ''Schenck v. United States''. In Schenck, the petitioners, members of the Socialist Party, were convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for printing and distributing circulars asserting that American citizens had a right to oppose the draft during World War I because, among other things, it violated the United States Constitution. The ''Schenck'' decision promulgated the "clear and present danger test," which provided the standard for sustaining a conviction when speech is relied upon as evidence that an offense has been committed. Justice Holmes, writing for a unanimous court, affirmed the decision of the lower court positing:

We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances, and are of such a nature as to create a "clear and present danger" that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.

''Dennis v. United States''

=Background

=
In 1951, the Supreme Court decided ''Dennis v. United States''. In Dennis, the petitioners were zealous Communists who organized for the purpose of teaching the "Marxist-Leninist Doctrine." The principal texts used to teach the doctrine were: ''History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union''; ''Foundations of Leninism'' by Stalin; '' The Communist Manifesto'' by Marx and Engels

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