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Address Celebrating WJTN Radio Joining the National Broadcasting Company Network

The improving condition of Jamestown’s industries and trade, which many of you may not see because you are too close to it, is a source of satisfaction.

Statecraft Under a Written Constitution

I am going to discuss some aspects of statecraft under our written Constitution. I think that an attachment to the institutions of this country will be much stronger if it is based on a knowledge of the practical operation of the government. This is an important and a much-neglected subject. If young men who have the advantages that are open to them do not acquire a mastery of the function of government, to whom will it be left to make important decisions of policy? No small part of our future will depend on the kind of government that we have in the next twenty years. We cannot expect individually to have opportunities much greater than those which are extended by the kind of society which the average American citizen enjoys.

What Price “Due Process”

The ease with which the foreign corporation is "doing business" within our state for the purpose of trade, and at the same time manages not to be doing business so as to be sued here, is attested by the number of cases in which service of process is nullified. How many cases are abandoned by counsel before suit can only be guessed at.

Liberty Under Law

Words will hardly express my appreciation of this award. Its presentation evidences your fine generosity, whatever may be thought of the discrimination shown in your choice. You, and even I, must have reservations as to whether I deserve a place on the roll with the two extraordinary advocates on whom you have previously bestowed it. But I let no scruples stand in the way of eager and grateful acceptance.

A Progressive Democracy

On Sunday evening, January 19, 1941 (Inauguration Eve), Attorney General Robert H. Jackson was scheduled to give the following keynote speech at a Washington, D.C., gala dinner for the presidential electors. The Democratic Party sought to feature Jackson, one of its brightest young (age 48) stars and future presidential prospects, before this large, particularly significant national political audience. Jackson, assigned to speak about “A Progressive Democracy,” wrote his own speech for the occasion – as he almost always did – but when the evening arrived, Jackson could not participate due to illness. His friend and colleague, Solicitor General Francis Biddle, instead delivered Jackson’s speech at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel to a crowd of more than 1,500 guests, including the 531 electors, Cabinet members, Members of Congress and State Governors. A Department of Justice press release copy of Jackson’s speech is contained in his papers in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., Box 41.

Independence Day Address

For nearly two years now many of us have been bewildered by the headlong course of events in Europe and not a few of us have been confused as to the course of wisdom at home. We have seen a nation which twenty years ago had been vanquished, rise up with a ferocity seldom seen in the history of mankind. We have seen vaunted armies smashed as if they were so much paper. We have seen Europe overrun and England placed in grave danger. We have seen the dictator idea spread in the world. At first its two principal proponents, communism and fascism, appeared to be mortal enemies.

Youth Faces “The New Order”

On Monday morning, February 23, 1942, Justice Robert H. Jackson delivered the following speech in Buffalo, New York, at the University of Buffalo’s (UB’s)  2nd annual midyear convocation (commencement). The ceremony was held in UB’s Edmund Hayes Hall before almost 1,000 persons, including sixty-five degree recipients. Justice Jackson gave this speech half way through his first year as a Supreme Court justice and just twelve weeks after Japan's devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. He spoke to his Buffalo audience of Americans’ failure to grasp the drift of the world and the threat of Nazism, of the massive military struggle underway worldwide, and of the need for the U.S. to take the offensive in seeking to win a peace and a new world order based on reason, justice and personal freedom.

Closing Address before the International Military Tribunal

An advocate can be confronted with few more formidable tasks than to select his closing arguments where there is great disparity between his appropriate time and his available material. In eight months -short time as state trials go - we have introduced evidence which embraces as vast and varied a panorama of events as has ever been compressed within the framework of a litigation. It is impossible in summation to do more than outline with bold strokes the vitals of this trial's mad and melancholy record, which will live as the historical text of the Twentieth Century's shame and depravity.

Address at the United Jewish Appeal

The Nurnberg trial laid bare to the world's view the basic evils that afflict our time. Unhappily, it did not end these evils. The Nurnberg lesson has been written. But has it been learned? Americans have expressed great concern as to whether the German people have learned its lessons.  But I am even more concerned about whether the American people have learned its lessons.

Nuremberg in Retrospect: Legal Answer to International Lawlessness

This is an authoritative account of the legal bases of the trials of the major Nazi war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg written by American Chief Prosecutor. Taken from an address delivered before the Canadian Bar Association meeting at Banff, Alberta, on September 1, Justice Jackson reviews in detail the legal foundations on which the trial rested and explains how the procedure used was determined.