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Society and the Graduate

Commencement season is traditionally a time for casting up accounts between society and the graduate. This year some unusual items throw the account out of its normal balance. For many years American youth at this high moment of life took its place in a society that was regarded as collectively secure under national institutions that were sage from external attack.

The America We’re Fighting For

How can American determine what its domestic goals after the war shall be? And why should we bother about it now? It is already plain that the Government will be pressed in favor of many plans by various planners. Important choices must be made. Intelligent decisions take time and preparation.

Swedish Contributions to Our Law

Three centuries make only a short pan in the long national life of Sweden, but they twice measure the entire national existence of the United States. our annals are concentrated in so few years that our interest in particular events sometimes appears extravagant to older peoples with longer histories.

An Address before the Canadian Bar Association

I value your invitation, not only as a personal honor, but as an expression of your esteem for the Court on which I sit and of your good will towards the legal profession in the United States. A sense a brotherhood, based on common tradition, always had animated the bars of our two countries.

American Courts

Over the next half century I cannot foresee, of course, the kind of world that will surround us at our work. We know that courts do not function well in an atmosphere of pressure and tumult and passion. Some people are voicing fears, or hopes, that the post-war world will move sharply to the right; and others thing, to the left.

Thomas Jefferson

It was the high character of the man that captivated even his rivals and left an imperishable impression on American history. He was pitted against the severest competition. Not only did able men from the North, such as Hamilton, Franklin, and Adams- measure their talents against his, but Virginia itself provided such contemporaries as Washington, Madison, Mason, Henry, Monroe, and many others in whose company it would be hard for any man to distinguish himself. However, we appreciate the true stature of Jefferson the more when we stand him beside the other strong men of his time.

Decline of Stare Decisis is Due to Volume of Opinions

The Institute is recognition that the practicing lawyer as well as the legislator and the judge, share responsibility for the state of the law. In fact, our system of public justice presupposes the private law office. We speak of people's going to court. But first they go to a law office.

The Churchman Address

The most fundamental certainty about the post-war world is in some ways the most discouraging one- it will be inhabited by people, mostly by the same people who populate it now. It is their suspicions and fears and ancient hatreds and conflicts in ambition and economic interest that have wrecked previous plans of world organization.

Tribute To Country Lawyers

Judge Powell's book reminds us who come from rural backgrounds that our way of life was much the same all over America. Judge Powell and I are a generation apart, but country living changed little between his youth and mine. Its real transformation came with the automobile, the gasoline engine, the telephone, radio, electric power, and mechanization, all of which were unavailable on the farm when I was born.

Full Faith and Credit

A namesake lecture in memory of Mr. Justice Cardozo is an undertaking of more than ordinary challenge to a Justice of a succeeding generation. Even choice of a fitting subject has difficulties. One related to the work of the Court on which he and I both have served might seem appropriate. But Judge Cardozo's most significant contributions to the law are not to be found in the reports of the Supreme Court. He was preeminently a devotee of the common law, while the Supreme Court has never been distinguished as a source of common law and during his time renounced independence of judgment as to what the common law is or should be in the class of cases that most often invoked it.