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The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy. One's right to life, liberty and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly may not be submitted to vote they depend on no elections.

Robert H. Jackson

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Robert H. Jackson
Age: 62 †
Born: 1892
Born: February 13
Died: 1954
Died: October 9
Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
Robert Houghwout Jackson
Right
Liberty
Bills
Assembly
Life
Rights
Election
Controversy
Purpose
Property
Elections
Freedom
Worship
Depend
Free
Vote
Libertarian
Submitted
Political
Speech
Bill
Vicissitudes
Certain
Subjects
Presses
Withdraw
May
Depends
Press
Libertarianism

More quotes by Robert H. Jackson

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Due process requires some definite link, some minimum connection, between a state and the person, property or transaction it seeks to tax.
Robert H. Jackson
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In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
Robert H. Jackson
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The duty to disclose knowledge of crime rests upon all citizens.
Robert H. Jackson
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Had the jury convicted on proper instructions it would be the end of the matter. But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges.
Robert H. Jackson
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That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.
Robert H. Jackson
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The physical power to get the money does not seem to me a test of the right to tax. Might does not make right even in taxation. To hold that what the use of official authority may get the state may keep, and that if it cannot get hold of a nonresident stockholder it may hold the company as hostage for him, is strange constitutional doctrine to me.
Robert H. Jackson
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In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
Robert H. Jackson
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Your job today tells me nothing of your future--your use of your leisure today tells me just what your tomorrow will be.
Robert H. Jackson
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Education should be a lifelong process, the formal period serving as a foundation on which life's structure may rest and rise.
Robert H. Jackson
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One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election.
Robert H. Jackson
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The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power.
Robert H. Jackson
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This Court is forever adding new stories to the temples of constitutional law, and the temples have a way of collapsing when one story too many is added.
Robert H. Jackson
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The very purpose of a bill of rights is to withdraw certain subjects from...political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities.
Robert H. Jackson
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We are not final because we are infallible, but infallible only because we are final.
Robert H. Jackson
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I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments of every case. First came the one that I planned-as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented-interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.
Robert H. Jackson
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It is only the words of the bill that have presidential approval, where that approval is given. It is not to be supposed that in signing a bill the President endorses the whole Congressional Record.
Robert H. Jackson
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Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly, what they really want when he says: 'We Americans want to talk, pray, think as we please and eat regular'.
Robert H. Jackson
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But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.
Robert H. Jackson
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I see no reason why I should be consciously wrong today because I was unconsciously wrong yesterday.
Robert H. Jackson
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Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.
Robert H. Jackson