1.
Supreme Court of the United States
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The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
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First Amendment to the United States Constitution
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It was adopted on December 15,1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was originally proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification, initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with Gitlow v. New York, the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court overturned English common law precedent to increase the burden of proof for defamation and libel suits, commercial speech, however, is less protected by the First Amendment than political speech, and is therefore subject to greater regulation. The Free Press Clause protects publication of information and opinions, in Near v. Minnesota and New York Times v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protected against prior restraint—pre-publication censorship—in almost all cases. The Petition Clause protects the right to all branches and agencies of government for action. In addition to the right of assembly guaranteed by this clause, eight of the other thirteen states made similar pledges. However, these declarations were generally considered mere admonitions to state legislatures, after a brief debate, Masons proposal was defeated by a unanimous vote of the state delegations. For the constitution to be ratified, however, nine of the thirteen states were required to approve it in state conventions, opposition to ratification was partly based on the Constitutions lack of adequate guarantees for civil liberties. Constitution was eventually ratified by all thirteen states and this language was greatly condensed by Congress, and passed the House and Senate with almost no recorded debate, complicating future discussion of the Amendments intent. The First Amendment, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, was submitted to the states for ratification on September 25,1789, and adopted on December 15,1791. In Reynolds v. United States the Supreme Court used these words to declare that it may be accepted almost as a declaration of the scope. Congress was deprived of all power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order. In these two sentences is found the distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State. Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government, Massachusetts, for example, was officially Congregationalist until the 1830s. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, in the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and State. That wall must be high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach, in Torcaso v. Watkins, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution prohibits states and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office
3.
Common law
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Common law is the body of law developed from the thirteenth century to the present day, as case law or precedent, by judges, courts, and tribunals. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, if a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is usually bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision. Resolution of the issue in one case becomes precedent that binds future courts, stare decisis, the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar results, lies at the heart of all common law systems. A common law system is a system that gives great precedential weight to common law. Common law systems originated during the Middle Ages in England, today, one third of the worlds population live in common law jurisdictions or in systems mixed with civil law. The term common law has many connotations, the first three set out here are the most-common usages within the legal community. Other connotations from past centuries are seen, and are sometimes heard in everyday speech. Blacks Law Dictionary, 10th Ed. gives as definition 1,1, the body of law derived from judicial decisions, rather than from statutes or constitutions, CASELAW, STATUTORY LAW. In this connotation, common law distinguishes the authority that promulgated a law. e, examples include most criminal law and procedural law before the 20th century, and even today, most contract law and the law of torts. Interstitial common law decisions that analyze, interpret and determine the fine boundaries. Publication of decisions, and indexing, is essential to the development of common law, while all decisions in common law jurisdictions are precedent, some become leading cases or landmark decisions that are cited especially often. Blacks 10th Ed. definition 2, differentiates common law jurisdictions, by contrast, in civil law jurisdictions, courts lack authority to act if there is no statute. Judicial precedent is given less weight, which means that a judge deciding a given case has more freedom to interpret the text of a statute independently. For example, the Napoleonic code expressly forbade French judges to pronounce general principles of law. As a rule of thumb, common law systems trace their history to England, blacks 10th Ed. definition 4, differentiates common law from equity. This split propagated to many of the colonies, including the United States, for most purposes, most jurisdictions, including the U. S. federal system and most states, have merged the two courts. Additionally, even before the courts were merged, most courts were permitted to apply both law and equity, though under potentially different procedural law. In the United States, determining whether the Seventh Amendments right to a jury trial applies or whether the issue will be decided by a judge, the standard of review and degree of deference given by an appellate tribunal to the decision of the lower tribunal under review
4.
Draft evasion
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Draft evasion is an intentional decision not to comply with the military conscription policies of ones nation. Such practices that do not involve law breaking or which are based on conscientious objection are sometimes referred to as draft avoidance, refusing to submit to the draft is considered a criminal offense in most countries where conscription is in effect. Those who practice draft evasion are sometimes referred to as draft dodgers. It is possible to draw a contrast between draft evasion and draft avoidance, the Vietnam era version of Websters Unabridged Dictionary simply defined draft dodger as one who avoids military service regardless how it was done. Some means of draft avoidance, Being a conscientious objector, whether ones anti-war sentiment is religious or otherwise, note that many people who support conscription will distinguish between bona fide conscientious objection and draft dodging, which they view as evasion of military service without a valid excuse. Conscientious objection would be considered if the sentiment was not genuine. Seeking excusal from military service due to health reasons - this would be considered if the purported health issue was feigned or overstated. Seeking and receiving a student deferment and this would be considered evasion if false or misleading academic credentials were used. Some notable US figures avoided the draft as students, such as Bill Clinton, being employed in or applying for a job in an essential civilian occupation and seeking deferment on those grounds. Farmers are usually exempt as are individuals employed in related industries. Often this required a letter from the potential draftees employer to be accepted, after receiving deferment as a student,2008 U. S. Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani received further deferment after his occupation as a law clerk was deemed essential by the Selective Service, non-pacifist churches have at times deferred missionaries as divinity students. During the Vietnam War The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became embroiled in controversy for deferring large numbers of its young members. The LDS church eventually agreed to cap the number of missionary deferments it sought for members in any one state, however and this cap was church wide in the United States and was not limited to Utah. Only two missionaries a year were allowed from each ward. Utah from receiving deferments with relative ease, simply declining to enlist, if the potential conscript appears likely to avoid the draft through sheer luck of the draw. Declining to enlist is not evasion, paying a stand-in to take ones place if drafted. In most countries this is no legally sanctioned, but it was a lawful. In some countries it is possible to evade military service by bribing corrupt draft officers
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United States Congress
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The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D. C, both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, Congress has 535 voting members,435 Representatives and 100 Senators. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members in addition to its 435 voting members and these members can, however, sit on congressional committees and introduce legislation. Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the members of the House of Representatives serve two-year terms representing the people of a single constituency, known as a district. Congressional districts are apportioned to states by using the United States Census results. Each state, regardless of population or size, has two senators, currently, there are 100 senators representing the 50 states. Each senator is elected at-large in their state for a term, with terms staggered. The House and Senate are equal partners in the legislative process—legislation cannot be enacted without the consent of both chambers, however, the Constitution grants each chamber some unique powers. The Senate ratifies treaties and approves presidential appointments while the House initiates revenue-raising bills, the House initiates impeachment cases, while the Senate decides impeachment cases. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is required before a person can be forcibly removed from office. The term Congress can also refer to a meeting of the legislature. A Congress covers two years, the current one, the 115th Congress, began on January 3,2017, the Congress starts and ends on the third day of January of every odd-numbered year. Members of the Senate are referred to as senators, members of the House of Representatives are referred to as representatives, congressmen, or congresswomen. One analyst argues that it is not a solely reactive institution but has played a role in shaping government policy and is extraordinarily sensitive to public pressure. Several academics described Congress, Congress reflects us in all our strengths, Congress is the governments most representative body. Congress is essentially charged with reconciling our many points of view on the public policy issues of the day. —Smith, Roberts, and Wielen Congress is constantly changing and is constantly in flux, most incumbents seek re-election, and their historical likelihood of winning subsequent elections exceeds 90 percent
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Louis Brandeis
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Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents from Bohemia and he attended Harvard Law School, graduating at the age of twenty with the highest grade average in the law schools history. Brandeis settled in Boston, where he founded a law firm and he later published a book titled Other Peoples Money And How the Bankers Use It, suggesting ways of curbing the power of large banks and money trusts. He fought against powerful corporations, monopolies, public corruption, and mass consumerism, all of which he felt were detrimental to American values and culture. He also became active in the Zionist movement, seeing it as a solution to antisemitism in Europe and Russia, when his familys finances became secure, he began devoting most of his time to public causes and was later dubbed the Peoples Lawyer. He insisted on serving on cases without pay so that he would be free to address the issues involved. The Economist magazine calls him A Robin Hood of the law, in 1916, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Brandeis to become a member of the Supreme Court. His nomination was contested, partly because, as Justice William O. Douglas wrote. He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance, his arithmetic and he was dangerous because he was incorruptible. The fears of the Establishment were greater because Brandeis was the first Jew to be named to the Court. On June 1,1916 he was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 47 to 22, to one of the most famous. His opinions were, according to scholars, some of the greatest defenses of freedom of speech. Louis Dembitz Brandeis was born on November 13,1856, in Louisville, Kentucky and his parents, Adolph Brandeis and Frederika Dembitz, both of whom were Ashkenazi Jews, emigrated to the United States from their childhood homes in Prague, Bohemia. They emigrated as part of their families for both economic and political reasons. In addition, the Habsburg Empire had imposed taxes on Jews. Family elders sent Adolph Brandeis to America to observe and prepare for his familys possible emigration and he spent a few months in the Midwest and was impressed by the nations institutions and by the tolerance among the people he met. He wrote home to his wife, Americas progress is the triumph of the rights of man, the Brandeis family chose to settle in Louisville partly because it was a prosperous river port. His earliest childhood was shaped by the American Civil War, which forced the family to seek safety temporarily in Indiana, the Brandeis family held abolitionist beliefs that angered their Louisville neighbors
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Learned Hand
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Billings Learned Hand was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Hand has been quoted more often by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States than any other lower-court judge. Born and raised in Albany, New York, Hand majored in philosophy at Harvard College, after a short career as a lawyer in Albany and New York City, he was appointed at the age of 37 as a Federal District Judge in Manhattan in 1909. The profession suited his detached and open-minded temperament, and his decisions soon won him a reputation for craftsmanship, between 1909 and 1914, under the influence of Herbert Crolys social theories, Hand supported New Nationalism. He ran unsuccessfully as the Progressive Partys candidate for Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals in 1913, but withdrew from active politics shortly afterwards. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge promoted Hand to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, scholars have recognized the Second Circuit under Hand as one of the finest appeals courts in the countrys history. Friends and admirers often lobbied for Hands promotion to the Supreme Court, Hand possessed a gift for the English language, and his writings are admired as legal literature. He rose to fame outside the profession in 1944 during World War II after giving a short address in Central Park that struck a popular chord in its appeal for tolerance. During a period when a hysterical fear of subversion divided the nation, a collection of Hands papers and addresses, published in 1952 as The Spirit of Liberty, sold well and won him new admirers. Even after he criticized the civil-rights activism of the 1950s Warren Court, Hand is also remembered as a pioneer of modern approaches to statutory interpretation. His decisions in specialist fields, such as patents, torts, admiralty law, on constitutional matters, he was both a political progressive and an advocate of judicial restraint. He believed in the protection of speech and in bold legislation to address social. He argued, however, that the United States Constitution does not empower courts to overrule the legislation of elected bodies, instead, he advocated the combination of toleration and imagination that to me is the epitome of all good government. Billings Learned Hand was born on January 27,1872, in Albany, New York and his mothers family traditionally used surnames as given names, and Hand was named for a maternal uncle and a grandfather, both named Billings Peck Learned. The Hands were a prominent family with a tradition of activism in the Democratic Party, Hand grew up in comfortable circumstances on Albanys main residential street. The family had an almost hereditary attachment to the profession and has been described as the most distinguished legal family in northern New York. Samuel Hand was a lawyer, who had risen rapidly through the ranks of an Albany-based law firm in the 1860s and. Samuel Hand was a distant, intimidating figure to his son, Samuel Hand died from cancer when Learned was 14
8.
Fred M. Vinson
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Frederick Fred Moore Vinson was an American politician who served the United States in all three branches of government and was the most prominent member of the Vinson political family. In the legislative branch, he was an member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisa, Kentucky. In the executive branch, he was Secretary of the Treasury under President Harry S. Truman, in the judicial branch, President Truman appointed Vinson the 13th Chief Justice of the United States in 1946. To date, he is the last candidate nominated by a president from the Democratic Party to be confirmed as Chief Justice. As a child he would help his father in the jail, Vinson worked odd jobs while in school. He graduated from Kentucky Normal School in 1908 and enrolled at Centre College, while at Centre, he was a member of the Kentucky Alpha Delta chapter of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He became a lawyer in Louisa, a town of 2,500 residents. He first ran for and was elected to office as the City Attorney of Louisa and he joined the Army during World War I. Following the war, he was elected as the Commonwealths Attorney for the Thirty-Second Judicial District of Kentucky, Vinson married Julia Roberta Dixon on January 24,1924 in Ashland, Kentucky. In 1924, he ran in an election for his districts seat in Congress after William J. Fields resigned to become the governor of Kentucky. Vinson was elected as a Democrat and then was reelected twice before losing in 1928 and his loss was attributed to his refusal to dissociate his campaign from Alfred E. Smiths presidential campaign. When the position of the American Medical Association on the measure was questioned, while he was in Congress he befriended Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman, a friendship that would last throughout his life. He soon became an advisor, confidant, card player. Vinsons Congressional service ended after he was nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 26,1937, Roosevelt wanted him to fill a seat vacated by Charles H. Robb on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Vinson was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 9,1937, while he was there, he was designated by Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone on March 2,1942, as chief judge of the United States Emergency Court of Appeals. He served here until his resignation on May 27,1943 and he resigned from the bench to become Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, an executive agency charged with fighting inflation. He also spent time as Federal Loan Administrator and director of War Mobilization and Reconversion and he was appointed United States Secretary of the Treasury by President Truman and served from July 23,1945, to June 23,1946. Before the war ended, Vinson directed the last of the great war-bond drives, in order to encourage private investment in postwar America, he promoted a tax cut in the Revenue Act of 1945
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American Civil Liberties Union
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It works through litigation and lobbying. The ACLU has 1,000,000 members and a budget of over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in almost all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions that have established by its board of directors. The two organizations share office space and employees, during the 1930s, the ACLU started to engage in work combating police misconduct and supporting Native American rights. Many of the ACLUs cases involved the defense of Communist party members, in 1940, the ACLU leadership voted to exclude Communists from its leadership positions, a decision rescinded in 1968. During World War II, the ACLU defended Japanese-American citizens, unsuccessfully trying to prevent their forcible relocation to internment camps, during the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-Communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party. By 1964, membership had risen to 80,000, in the 1960s, the ACLU continued its decades-long effort to enforce separation of church and state. It defended several anti-war activists during the Vietnam War, in the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, involving the rights of homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor. Fundraising and membership spiked after the 2016 election, the ACLUs current membership is more than 1.2 million, the ACLU is led by a president and an executive director, Susan N. Herman and Anthony Romero, respectively, in 2015. The president acts as chairman of the ACLUs board of directors, leads fundraising, the executive director manages the day-to-day operations of the organization. The board of directors consists of 80 persons, including representatives from each state affiliate, the organization has its headquarters in 125 Broad Street, a 40-story skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The leadership of the ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions, in 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend Henry Fords right to distribute anti-union literature. In 1939, a debate took place over whether to prohibit communists from serving in ACLU leadership roles. During the early 1950s and Cold War McCarthyism, the board was divided on whether to defend communists, in 1968, a schism formed over whether to represent Dr. Spocks anti-war activism. In 1973, there was conflict over whether to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. In 2005, there was conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent publication of internal disputes. Membership dues are treated as donations, members choose the amount they pay annually, in the year ending March 31,2014, the combined expenses of the ACLU and ACLU Foundation were $133.4 million, spent on programs, management, and fundraising
10.
Constitution
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A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i. e. constitute, some constitutions are uncodified, but written in numerous fundamental Acts of a legislature, court cases or treaties. Constitutions concern different levels of organizations, from states to companies. A treaty which establishes an international organization is also its constitution, within states, a constitution defines the principles upon which the state is based, the procedure in which laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially codified constitutions, also act as limiters of state power, by establishing lines which a states rulers cannot cross, the term constitution comes through French from the Latin word constitutio, used for regulations and orders, such as the imperial enactments. Later, the term was used in canon law for an important determination, especially a decree issued by the Pope. The Latin term ultra vires describes activities of officials within an organization or polity that fall outside the constitutional or statutory authority of those officials. Ultra vires gives a justification for the forced cessation of such action. A violation of rights by an official would be ultra vires because a right is a restriction on the powers of government, and therefore that official would be exercising powers they do not have. It was never law, even though, if it had been a statute or statutory provision, in such a case, only the application may be ruled unconstitutional. Historically, the remedy for such violations have been petitions for common law writs, excavations in modern-day Iraq by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash ca 2300 BC. Perhaps the earliest prototype for a law of government, this document itself has not yet been discovered, for example, it is known that it relieved tax for widows and orphans, and protected the poor from the usury of the rich. After that, many governments ruled by codes of written laws. The oldest such document still known to exist seems to be the Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur, some of the better-known ancient law codes include the code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin, the code of Hammurabi of Babylonia, the Hittite code, the Assyrian code and Mosaic law. In 621 BC a scribe named Draco codified the cruel oral laws of the city-state of Athens, in 594 BC Solon, the ruler of Athens, created the new Solonian Constitution. It eased the burden of the workers, and determined that membership of the class was to be based on wealth. Cleisthenes again reformed the Athenian constitution and set it on a footing in 508 BC. The most basic definition he used to describe a constitution in general terms was the arrangement of the offices in a state
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Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
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United States, and is one of the most influential American common law judges, honored during his lifetime in Great Britain as well as the United States. Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90 years and he also served as an Associate Justice and as Chief Justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was Weld Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, of which he was an alumnus. Holmes espoused a form of skepticism and opposed the doctrine of natural law. As he wrote in one of his most famous decisions, his dissent in Abrams v and these positions as well as his distinctive personality and writing style made him a popular figure, especially with American progressives. He was one of only a handful of justices to be known as a scholar, Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and abolitionist Amelia Lee Jackson. Known as Wendell in his youth, Holmes, Henry James Jr. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement, and early formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes, Emerson famously replied, If you strike at a king, you must kill him. He supported the Abolitionist movement that thrived in Boston society during the 1850s, at Harvard, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club, both of which his father had also been a member. In the Pudding, he served as Secretary and Poet, as his father also had, in the summer of 1861 with his fathers help he obtained a lieutenants commission in the Twentieth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Holmess early life was described in detail by Mark DeWolfe Howe, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes--The Shaping Years, 1841-1870. He saw much action, from the Peninsula Campaign to the Wilderness, suffering wounds at the Battle of Balls Bluff, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, Holmes particularly admired and was close to his fellow officer in the 20th Massachusetts, Henry Livermore Abbott. Holmes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but eschewed promotion in his regiment, Abbott took command of the regiment in his place, and was later killed. Holmes is said to have shouted to Lincoln to take cover during the Battle of Fort Stevens, Holmes himself expressed uncertainty about who had warned Lincoln and other sources state he likely was not present on the day Lincoln visited Fort Stevens. Holmes received a promotion to colonel in recognition of his services during the war. He retired to his home in Boston after his enlistment ended in 1864, weary and ill. But by the fall, when it became clear that the war would end, Holmes enrolled in the Harvard Law School, kicked into the law by his father. He attended lectures there for a year, reading extensively in theoretical works. He was admitted to the bar in 1866, and after a visit to London, to complete his education
12.
Schenck v. United States
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Schenck v. United States,249 U. S.47, is a United States Supreme Court case concerning enforcement of the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I. The First Amendment did not alter the law in cases where the attempt was made through expressions that would be protected in other circumstances. In this opinion, Holmes said that expressions which in the circumstances were intended to result in a crime, but the Court has set another line of precedents to govern cases in which the constitutionality of a statute is challenged on its face. Schenck v. United States was the first in a line of Supreme Court Cases defining the modern understanding of the First Amendment. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote the opinion in the case, because of events that were not publicly known at the time. The Woodrow Wilson Administration launched a campaign of criminal enforcement that resulted in thousands of prosecutions. Many of these were for acts of dissent. They were charged with obstructing the recruitment and enlistment service, and it is better for those who have unquestioned and almost unlimited power in their hands to err on the side of freedom. White then asked Holmes to write the opinion for a unanimous Court in the case, one in which they could agree. Holmes disliked legislative-style formulas, and did not repeat the language of clear and present danger in any subsequent opinion, the facts of the Schenck Case were as follows. Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were members of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party in Philadelphia, the executive committee authorized, and Schenck oversaw, printing and mailing more than 15,000 fliers to men slated for conscription during World War I. After jury trials Schenck and Baer were convicted of violating Section 3 of the Espionage Act of 1917, both defendants appealed to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that their conviction, and the statute which purported to authorize it, were contrary to the First Amendment. They relied heavily on the text of the First Amendment, the Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. held that Schencks criminal conviction was constitutional. The statute only applied to successful obstructions of the draft, in other words, the court held, the circumstances of wartime allow greater restrictions on free speech than would be allowed during peacetime, if only because new and greater dangers are present. The opinions most famous and most often quoted passage was this, The most stringent protection of speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre. The phrase shouting fire in a crowded theater has become a popular metaphor for dangers or limitations of free speech. In Whitney v. California, concerning a conviction for seditious speech forbidden by California law, in 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the argument of Holmess Abrams dissent. Section 2339B, for providing support for terrorist organizations
