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The American Bar Center: A Testimony to Our Faith in the Rule of Law

In his address at the laying of the cornerstone of the new American Bar Center on November 2, 1953, Mr. Justice Jackson compared the Western ideal of the rule of law with the barbarian's reliance upon force, recently revived in the modern totalitarian states. The latter part of his address took the form of a legal creed that may well survive the building whose erection it marked.

The Supreme Court in the American System of Government

In March 1954 the Harvard Graduate School of Public Administration invited Mr. Justice Jackson to become the Godkin Lecturer for the academic year 1954-1955. The Justice accepted and chose as his topic for the three lectures, “The Supreme Court in the American System of Government.” February of 1955 was tentatively set as the date for delivery. The Justice began outlining his subject and formulating his ideas soon after he accepted the invitation, and by the end of summer, 1954, he had completed six drafts of the first lecture and two of the second and third. He then reorganized the whole and wrote one more draft of the first two lectures and two partial redrafts of the third. Mr. Justice Jackson died suddenly on October 9, 1954.

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.

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.

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.