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111-614: In 1794 a board of several interested citizens calling themselves the Newburyport Library Association established a circulating library, the Newburyport Library, in downtown Newburyport, advertising for subscribers. The booksellers had already been forming circulation libraries in their stores since before 1794 and these continued as adjuncts to the book-selling businesses. A renovated and expanded 18th century Federalist mansion currently houses

222-658: A commission as second lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry . He saw considerable combat during his service, taking part in the Peninsula Campaign , and the Wilderness , suffering wounds at the Battle of Ball's Bluff , Antietam , and Chancellorsville , and suffered from a near-fatal case of dysentery. He particularly admired and was close to Henry Livermore Abbott ,

333-402: A democracy: [W]hen men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe   ... that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out. That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life

444-512: A fellow officer in the 20th Massachusetts. Holmes rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but eschewed command of his regiment upon his promotion. Abbott took command of the regiment in his place and was later killed. In September 1863, while recovering at the Holmes family home on Charles Street in Boston from his third major combat injury, Holmes was promoted to colonel, but he never returned to

555-478: A generation later by the "legal realist" school in America. Holmes practiced admiralty law and commercial law in Boston for fifteen years. It was during this time that he did his principal scholarly work, serving as an editor of the new American Law Review , reporting decisions of state supreme courts, and preparing a new edition of Kent's Commentaries , which served practitioners as a compendium of case law, at

666-447: A judgment of their own, it by no means is true that every law is void which may seem to the judges who pass upon it excessive, unsuited to its ostensible end, or based upon conceptions of morality with which they disagree. Considerable latitude must be allowed for differences of view   .... If the state thinks that an admitted evil cannot be prevented except by prohibiting a calling or transaction not in itself necessarily objectionable,

777-600: 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 Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club ; his father had also been a member of both clubs. In the Pudding, he served as Secretary and Poet, as had his father. Holmes graduated Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude from Harvard in 1861, and, in

888-514: A living thought". General propositions do not decide concrete cases. —Holmes's dissent in Lochner v. New York , 198 U.S. 45, 76 (1905) The provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas that have their essence in form, they are organic, living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal; it is to be gathered not simply by taking

999-526: A long visit to London to complete his education went into law practice in Boston. He joined a small firm, and in 1872 married a childhood friend, Fanny Bowditch Dixwell, buying a farm in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts , the following year. Their marriage lasted until her death on April 30, 1929. They never had children. They did adopt and raise an orphaned cousin, Dorothy Upham. Fanny "had a charming public persona. She could also be quiet and unassuming.... She

1110-462: A man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic " and formulating the groundbreaking " clear and present danger " test. Later that same year, in his famous dissent in Abrams v. United States (1919), he wrote that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market   ... That, at any rate, is the theory of our Constitution . It

1221-422: A person whose conduct failed to reflect the prudence of a "reasonable man": [I]f a workman on a house-top at mid-day ... throws down a heavy beam into the street, he does an act which a person of ordinary prudence would foresee is likely to cause death, or grievous bodily harm, and he is dealt with as if he foresaw it, whether he does so in fact or not. If a death is caused by the act, he is guilty of murder. But if

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1332-429: A rooming-house. It was at this point that the subscribers to the new Newburyport Public Library expressed an interest in purchasing and renovating it. The free public library, as the then new type of institution was beginning to be called, of Newburyport was conceived by Josiah Little, Charles Jackson and Samuel Swett as a circulation library with the fees paid by benefactors and the city. The citizens could then circulate

1443-415: A ship's officer, a navigator, a master and finally an owner. In the end he owned an import/export business utilizing fleets of ships, which made him very wealthy. His main interests outside of business, however, were St. Paul's Church, where he was a vestryman, and building the future City of Newburyport. He married Hannah Gookin, a minister's daughter. In 1751 his son, Nathaniel Tracy, was born. In due time he

1554-447: A system imposed by a deity. Being a legal positivist , Holmes brought himself into constant conflict with scholars who believed that legal duties rested upon natural law , a moral order of the kind invoked by Christian theologians and other philosophic idealists. He believed instead "that men make their own laws; that these laws do not flow from some mysterious omnipresence in the sky, and that judges are not independent mouthpieces of

1665-455: A time when official reports were scarce and difficult to obtain. He summarized his hard-won understanding in a series of lectures, collected and published as The Common Law in 1881. The Common Law has been continuously in print since 1881 and remains an important contribution to jurisprudence. The book also remains controversial, for Holmes begins by rejecting various kinds of formalism in law. In his earlier writings he had expressly denied

1776-603: A unanimous Court that an attempt, purely by language, could be prosecuted if the expression, in the circumstances in which it was uttered, posed a "clear and present danger" that the legislature had properly forbidden. In his opinion for the Court, Holmes famously declared that the First Amendment would not protect a person "falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic". Later in 1919, however, in Abrams v. United States , Holmes dissented. The Wilson Administration

1887-664: Is about 250,000 items. Manuscript holdings include materials related to local history, such as: Active Fire Society in Newburyport; Belleville Improvement Society; First Religious Society in Newburyport; General Charitable Society; Monday Evening Club; Newburyport Choral Union; Newburyport Female Charitable Society; Newburyport Lyceum; Newburyport Union Singing Society; Oak Hill Cemetery; and Second Presbyterian Church. 42°48′45″N 70°52′40″W  /  42.81250°N 70.87778°W  / 42.81250; -70.87778 Federalist architecture Federal-style architecture

1998-402: Is an experiment, as all life is an experiment." He added that "we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death...." The Journal of Legal Studies has identified Holmes as the third-most-cited American legal scholar of the 20th century. Holmes was a legal realist , as summed up in his maxim, "The life of

2109-586: Is an experiment. In writing this dissent, Holmes may have been influenced by Zechariah Chafee 's article "Freedom of Speech in War Time". Chafee had criticized Holmes's opinion in Schenck for failing to express in more detail and more clearly the common-law doctrines upon which he relied. In his Abrams dissent, Holmes did elaborate somewhat on the decision in Schenck , roughly along the lines that Chafee had suggested. Although Holmes evidently believed that he

2220-673: Is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes . [citation omitted] Three generations of imbeciles are enough. Sterilization rates under eugenics laws in the United States climbed from 1927 until Skinner v. Oklahoma , 316 U.S. 535 (1942), in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional an Oklahoma statute that provided for the sterilization of "habitual criminals". Buck v. Bell continues to be cited occasionally in support of due process requirements for state interventions in medical procedures. For instance, in 2001,

2331-462: Is considered one of the greatest judges in American history and embodies for many the traditions of the common law. A eugenicist, he authored the majority opinion upholding forced sterilization. Tens of thousands of the procedures followed. From the departure of William Howard Taft on February 3, 1930, until Charles Evans Hughes became chief justice on February 24, 1930, Holmes briefly acted as

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2442-513: Is remembered for prescient opinions on topics as varied as copyright law, the law of contempt, the antitrust status of professional baseball, and the oath required for citizenship . Holmes, like most of his contemporaries, viewed the Bill of Rights as codifying privileges obtained over the centuries in English and American common law, and he established that view in numerous opinions for the Court. He

2553-500: Is the name for the classical architecture built in the United States following the American Revolution between c.   1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was influenced heavily by the works of Andrea Palladio with several innovations on Palladian architecture by Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries. Jefferson's Monticello estate and several federal government buildings, including

2664-403: Is the witness and external deposit of our moral life. Its history is the history of the moral development of the race. The practice of it, in spite of popular jests, tends to make good citizens and good men. When I emphasize the difference between law and morals I do so with reference to a single end, that of learning and understanding the law." Holmes's insistence on the material basis of law, on

2775-412: Is what he attributed to the law, rather than his personal philosophy. Central to his thought was the notion that the law, as it had evolved in modern societies, was concerned with the material results of a defendant's actions. A judge's task was to decide which of two parties before him would bear the cost of an injury. Holmes argued that the evolving common law standard was that liability would fall upon

2886-563: The American colonies ' new motifs of neoclassical architecture as it was epitomized in Britain by Robert Adam , who published his designs in 1792. American Federal architecture typically uses plain surfaces with attenuated detail, usually isolated in panels, tablets, and friezes . It also had a flatter, smoother façade and rarely used pilasters . It was most influenced by the interpretation of ancient Roman architecture , fashionable after

2997-648: The Commissioners' Plan of 1811 in New York. The historic eastern part of Bleecker Street in New York, between Broadway and the Bowery , is home to Federal-style row houses at 7 to 13 and 21 to 25 Bleecker Street . The classicizing style of Federal architecture can especially be seen in the quintessential New England meeting house, with their lofty and complex towers by architects such as Lavius Fillmore and Asher Benjamin . This American neoclassical high style

3108-491: The Constitution of the United States . As a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Holmes rejected the argument that the text of the Constitution should be applied directly to cases that came before the court, as if it were a statute. He shared with most of his fellow jurists the belief that the Constitution carried forward principles derived from the common law, principles that continued to evolve in American courts. The text of

3219-571: The Massachusetts Governor's Council adjourned at 3 pm. Holmes's partner George Shattuck proposed him for the vacancy, Holmes quickly agreed, and there being no objection by the council, he took the oath of office on December 15, 1882. His resignation from his professorship, after only a few weeks and without notice , was resented by the law school faculty, with James Bradley Thayer finding Holmes's conduct "selfish" and "thoughtless". On August 2, 1899, Holmes became chief justice of

3330-656: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court following the death of Walbridge A. Field . During his service on the Massachusetts court, Holmes continued to develop and apply his views of the common law, usually following precedent faithfully. He issued few constitutional opinions in these years, but carefully developed the principles of free expression as a common-law doctrine. He departed from precedent to recognize workers' right to organize trade unions and to strike, as long as no violence

3441-560: The Salem Maritime National Historic Site , consisting of 12 historic structures and about 9 acres (4 ha) of land along the waterfront. Modern reassessment of the American architecture of the Federal period began with Fiske Kimball . Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of

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3552-536: The Sedition Act of 1918 , Holmes held that the freedom of expression guaranteed by federal and state constitutions simply declared a common-law privilege for speech and the press, even when those expressions caused injury, but that the privilege could be defeated by a showing of malice or intent to do harm. Holmes came to write three unanimous opinions for the Supreme Court that arose from prosecutions under

3663-434: The U.S. Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932. Holmes is one of the most widely cited and influential Supreme Court justices in American history, noted for his long tenure on the Court and for his pithy opinions—particularly those on civil liberties and American constitutional democracy—and deference to the decisions of elected legislatures . Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90, an unbeaten record for oldest justice on

3774-649: The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit cited Buck v. Bell to protect the constitutional rights of a woman coerced into sterilization without procedural due process. The court stated that error and abuse will result if the state does not follow the procedural requirements, established by Buck v. Bell , for performing an involuntary sterilization. Buck v. Bell was also cited briefly, though not discussed, in Roe v. Wade , in support of

3885-704: The White House , are among the most prominent examples of buildings constructed in Federal style. Federal style is also used in association with furniture design in the United States of the same time period. The style broadly corresponds to the classicism of Biedermeier style in the German -speaking lands, Regency architecture in Britain, and the French Empire style . It may also be termed Adamesque architecture . The White House and Monticello were setting stones for what Federal architecture has become. In

3996-561: The nomination and Holmes was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 4. He was sworn into office on December 8. On the bench, Holmes did vote to support the administration's position favoring the annexation of former Spanish colonies in the " Insular Cases ". However, he later disappointed Roosevelt by dissenting in Northern Securities Co. v. United States , a major antitrust prosecution;

4107-441: The 1917 Espionage Act because in an earlier case, Baltzer v. United States , he had circulated a powerfully expressed dissent, when the majority had voted to uphold a conviction of immigrant socialists who had circulated a petition criticizing the draft. Apparently learning that he was likely to publish this dissent, the government (perhaps alerted by Justice Louis D. Brandeis , newly appointed by President Woodrow Wilson ) abandoned

4218-706: The 20th Massachusetts because the unit had been largely destroyed. Upon his recovery, in January 1864 Holmes was appointed aide-de-camp of General Horatio Wright , then Division Commander of VI Corps , and later in command of the Corps. Holmes served with Wright during General Grant's campaign down to Petersburg, returning to Washington with the Sixth Corps when the Capital was threatened in July 1864. On July 17, 1864, Holmes

4329-500: The Civil War were often present in his writings. Judges decided where and when the force of the state would be brought to bear, and judges in the modern world tended to consult facts and consequences when deciding what conduct to punish. The decisions of judges, viewed over time, determined the rules of conduct and the legal duties by which all are bound. Judges did not and should not consult any external system of morality, certainly not

4440-466: The Constitution itself, as originally understood, was not a set of rules, but only a directive to courts to consider the body of the common law when deciding cases that arose under the Constitution. It followed that constitutional principles adopted from the common law were evolving, as the law itself evolved: "A word [in the Constitution] is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of

4551-633: The Espionage Act of 1917 that made criticisms of the government or the war effort a crime. Abrams and his co-defendants were charged with distributing leaflets (one in English and one in Yiddish) that called for a "general strike" to protest the U.S. intervention in Russia. A majority of the Court voted to uphold the convictions and sentences of ten and twenty years, to be followed by deportation, while Holmes dissented. The majority claimed to be following

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4662-474: The Law ", which is best known for its prediction theory of law, that "[t]he prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by law", and for its "bad man" perspective on the law, that "[i]f you really want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict". Soon after

4773-752: The Mayor ordered the foundation of the "Public Library of the City of Newburyport" and the City Council, which had approved, passed an ordinance for its governing. The library opened on September 5, 1855. The demand for books was so great that the directors began almost immediately seeking larger, better quarters, which would require more money. The means evaded them until 1860 when the Newburyport Lyceum agreed to sell tickets to lectures by persons of special invitation, who would do it for free, and donate

4884-603: The Newburyport Public Library. In the period of the Revolutionary War it was among the most notable mansion of Newburyport, owned by the Tracys, the leading family of the times. The mansion was the concept of Patrick Tracy (1711, Wexford County , Ireland to 1789), who came from Ireland penniless and went to work as a sailor on ships built in Newburyport's shipyards. A successful mariner, he became

4995-509: The Supreme Court. He previously served as a Brevet Colonel in the American Civil War , in which he was wounded three times, as an associate justice and chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court , and as Weld Professor of Law at his alma mater, Harvard Law School . His positions, distinctive personality, and writing style made him a popular figure, especially with American progressives . During his tenure on

5106-540: The U.S. Supreme Court, to which he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, he supported the constitutionality of state economic regulation and came to advocate broad freedom of speech under the First Amendment , after, in Schenck v. United States (1919), having upheld for a unanimous court criminal sanctions against draft protestors with the memorable maxim that " free speech would not protect

5217-705: The United States. The most important of these was his friendship with the Anglo-Irish Clare Castletown, the Lady Castletown, whose family estate in Ireland, Doneraile Court , he visited several times, and with whom he may have had a brief affair. He formed his closest intellectual friendships with British men and became one of the founders of what was soon called the "sociological" school of jurisprudence in Great Britain, followed

5328-408: The actual state of the parties' minds. In contract, as elsewhere, it must go by externals, and judge parties by their conduct." In the book, Holmes set forth his view that the only source of law, properly speaking, was a judicial decision enforced by the state. Judges decided cases on the facts, and then wrote opinions afterward presenting a rationale for their decision. The true basis of the decision

5439-737: The appropriate ordinances. In 2001, the Edward G. Molin wing was dedicated. As of December 2018, the library offers about 102,000 volumes to a service population of about 19,750. It is a member of the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium (MVLC), a network of 35 area libraries. Through resource sharing, Newburyport library card holders have access to over 3 million items owned by MVLC member libraries. Library staff assists in locating and requesting materials from other Massachusetts networks, as well as out-of-state libraries as necessary. The total circulation per year of NPL

5550-412: The books for free. Little began with a donation of $ 5000, while Jackson and Swett followed suit with money and books. An agreement was drawn up with the City in which the three called themselves "the subscribers." They would provide the initial endowment while Newburyport, Newbury and West Newbury would pay a pro-rated portion of the operating expenses plus 1% per annum on the overhead. On November 20, 1854,

5661-659: The case of Buck v. Bell . In 1881, in The Common Law , Holmes brought together into a coherent whole his earlier articles and lectures concerning the history of the common law (judicial decisions in England and the United States), which he interpreted from the perspective of a practicing lawyer. What counted as law, to a lawyer, was what judges did in particular cases. Law was what the state would enforce, through violence if necessary; echoes of his experience in

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5772-428: The case, and it was dismissed by the Court. The chief justice then asked Holmes to write opinions that could be unanimous, upholding convictions in three similar cases, where there were jury findings that speeches or leaflets were published with an intent to obstruct the draft, a crime under the 1917 law. Although there was no evidence that the attempts had succeeded, Holmes, in Schenck v. United States (1919), held for

5883-539: The chief justice and presided over court sessions. Beginning with his first opinion for the Court in Otis v. Parker (1903), Holmes exhibited his tendency to defer to legislatures, which two years later he did most famously in his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905). In Otis v. Parker , the Court, in an opinion by Holmes, upheld the constitutionality of a California statute that provided that "all contracts for

5994-415: The class and society from which judges were drawn. In his 1881 book The Common Law , Holmes argued that legal rules are not deduced through formal logic but rather emerge from an active process of human self-government. He expressed this idea most famously in The Common Law with the statement, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience". His philosophy represented a departure from

6105-504: The clear and present danger test, stated in 1969 in Brandenburg v. Ohio , holds that "advocacy of the use of force or of law violation" is protected by the First Amendment "unless such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". In Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920), Holmes ruled that any evidence obtained, even indirectly, from an illegal search

6216-624: The close of the War, his wealth vanished like smoke.... In 1786, he found himself bankrupt." His land assets were resold at a fraction of what he had paid for them. He finally retired to Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts , and died there. His eleven children and those of his brother and sister went on to found families from which many leading men and women of New England were to descend, including Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes . The home in Newburyport did not then pass out of

6327-443: The community. In the modern world, the advances made in biology and the social sciences should allow a better conscious determination of the results of individual acts and the proper measure of liability for them. This belief in the pronouncements of science concerning social welfare, although he later doubted its applicability to law in many cases, accounts for his enthusiastic endorsement of eugenics in his writings, and his opinion in

6438-429: The courts cannot interfere, unless   ... they can see that it 'is a clear, unmistakable infringement of rights secured by the fundamental law.'" In his dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York (1905), Holmes supported labor, not out of sympathy for workers, but because of his tendency to defer to legislatures. In Lochner , the Court struck down a New York statute that prohibited employees (spelled "employes" at

6549-412: The death of Associate Justice Horace Gray in July 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt made known his intention to appoint Holmes as Gray's successor; it was the president's stated desire to fill the vacancy with someone from Massachusetts. The nomination was supported by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge , the junior senator from Massachusetts, but was opposed by its senior senator, George Frisbie Hoar , who

6660-417: The defendants' intent] and enough can be squeezed from these poor and puny anonymities to turn the color of legal litmus paper   ... the most nominal punishment seems to me all that possibly could be inflicted, unless the defendants are to be made to suffer, not for what the indictment alleges, but for the creed that they avow   ..." Holmes then went on to explain the importance of freedom of thought in

6771-463: The early United States, the founding generation consciously chose to associate the nation with the ancient democracies of Greece and the republican values of Rome . Grecian aspirations informed the Greek Revival , lasting into the 1850s. Using Roman architectural vocabulary, the Federal style applied to the balanced and symmetrical version of Georgian architecture that had been practiced in

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6882-409: The facts of a case, has led some to characterize him as unfeeling, however. George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen summarized Holmes's views this way: "Holmes was a cold and brutally cynical man who had contempt for the masses and for the progressive laws he voted to uphold   ... an aristocratic nihilist who once told his sister that he loathed 'the thick-fingered clowns we call

6993-420: The fall of 1882, Holmes became a professor at Harvard Law School , accepting an endowed professorship that had been created for him, largely through the efforts of Louis D. Brandeis . On Friday, December 8, 1882, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts associate justice Otis Lord decided to resign, giving outgoing Republican governor John Davis Long a chance to appoint his successor, if he could do so before

7104-556: The fall, when it became clear that the war would soon end, Holmes enrolled in Harvard Law School , "kicked into the law" by his father, as he later recalled. He attended lectures there for a single year, reading extensively in theoretical works, and then clerked for a year in his cousin Robert Morse's office. In 1866, he received a Bachelor of Laws degree from Harvard, was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, and after

7215-400: The family; it was taken over by Nathaniel's brother-in-law and former business partner, Jonathan Jackson, entering a new period of splendor. Among its visitors were the first president of the United States, George Washington , Lafayette, Talleyrand, Louis-Phillipe and others. When the family no longer had an interest in remaining there, they sold it as a hotel. Finally, now aging fast, it became

7326-416: The history of the common law: The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, intuitions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow-men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed. The law embodies

7437-441: The infinite." "The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky." Rather than a set of abstract, rational, mathematical, or in any way unworldly set of principles, Holmes said: "[T]he prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." His belief that law, properly speaking, was a set of generalizations from what judges had done in similar cases, determined his view of

7548-568: The later advocates of legal realism and made him one of the early founders of law and economics jurisprudence. Holmes famously contrasted his own scholarship with the abstract doctrines of Christopher Columbus Langdell , dean of Harvard Law School, who viewed the common law as a self-enclosed set of doctrines. Holmes viewed Langdell's work as akin to the German philosophic idealism he had for so long resisted, opposing it with his own scientific materialism. Albert Alschuler , however, wrote, "Langdell

7659-566: The law are those which give it universal interest. It is through them that you not only become a great master in your calling, but connect your subject with the universe and catch an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, "The Path of the Law", 10 Harvard Law Review 457, 478 (1897) Holmes was considered for a federal court judgeship in 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes , but Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar persuaded Hayes to nominate another candidate. In

7770-492: The law has not been logic: it has been experience," a moral skeptic , and an opponent of the doctrine of natural law . His jurisprudence and academic writing influenced much subsequent American legal thinking, including the judicial consensus upholding New Deal regulatory law and the influential American schools of pragmatism , critical legal studies , and law and economics . Holmes was born in Boston , Massachusetts , to

7881-469: The majority had reached its decision on the basis of the economic theory of laissez faire , but that the Constitution does not prevent the states from interfering with the liberty to contract. "The Fourteenth Amendment", Holmes wrote, "does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencer 's Social Statics ", which advocates laissez faire . In a series of opinions surrounding the World War I Espionage Act of 1917 and

7992-483: The majority of the court opposed Holmes and sided with Roosevelt's belief that Northern Securities violated the Sherman Antitrust Act. The dissent by Holmes permanently damaged his formerly close relationship with Roosevelt. Holmes was known for his pithy, frequently quoted opinions. In more than twenty-nine years on the Supreme Court bench, he ruled on cases spanning the whole range of federal law. He

8103-479: The massive white pines still seen in Newburyport) and as a result Nathaniel's ships were blacklisted from European commerce. In addition, American ships were no longer protected as colonial by European treaties. The sentiment of foreign governments was that the new United States, although it could defend its own soil with French assistance, could not defend its interests abroad. All the powers of Europe joined in

8214-886: The national budget to corsair states such as Tripoli, but to no avail. The outlook for Americans abroad did not improve until the new United States Navy sent squadrons carrying marines to the Mediterranean, in such conflicts as the First Barbary War , and elsewhere, defeated the British again in the War of 1812 and subsequently began to enforce the Monroe Doctrine . These events in the rise of American sea power were far too late for Nathaniel Tracy: "... he found himself hopelessly involved in financial difficulties, owing large sums of money which he could not pay, and with

8325-532: The plunder. American crews and cargoes were seized everywhere or delayed in port until their cargos spoiled. Americans became a special target of the Barbary Corsairs . In an ironic turn of events, they went into slavery in the Ottoman Empire along with over a million Europeans. Following George Washington's policy of avoiding foreign wars and entanglements, Congress paid a significant portion of

8436-455: The pragmatic basis of the common-law privileges extended to speech and the press, which could be defeated by a showing of malice, or of specific intent to harm. Famously, he observed in McAuliffe v. Mayor of New Bedford (1892) that a policeman "may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman". He also published an address, " The Path of

8547-503: The precedents already set in Schenck and the other cases in which Holmes had written for the Court, but Holmes insisted that the defendants' leaflets neither threatened to cause any harm nor showed a specific intent to hinder the war effort. Holmes condemned the Wilson Administration's prosecution and its insistence on draconian sentences for the defendants in passionate language: "Even if I am technically wrong [regarding

8658-447: The prevailing jurisprudence of the time: legal formalism , which held that law was an orderly system of rules from which decisions in particular cases could be deduced. Holmes sought to consciously reinvent the common law  – to modernize it as a tool for adjusting to the changing nature of modern life, as judges of the past had done more or less unconsciously. He has been classed with the philosophic pragmatists, although pragmatism

8769-553: The privateers had been lost through attrition in the war. The remaining vessels were detained in whatever port they were using for supply, the crews were imprisoned or impressed into the British Navy and the ships, unable to sail, were abandoned. The merchant fleet fared no better. One of Nathaniel's agents had delivered a load of scrap masts to the French Navy, which was hoping to avail itself of solid American wood (such as

8880-648: The proceeds to the Library Building Fund. The lecturers were mainly ministers and academics. Over three seasons about $ 1000 was collected. At this point Edward S. Moseley, a banker and one of the wealthiest men in Newburyport, placed himself and his friends on the subscription list. The names are familiar from today's streets and structures: the Hales, Cushings, Currier, Coffin, Forbes, Moulton, and so on, and others from as far away as New York and London. The fund soon expanded to about $ 20,000. The Tracy Mansion

8991-517: The prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Amelia Lee Jackson Holmes. Both his parents were of English descent, and all his ancestors had come to North America from England during the early colonial period as part of the Puritan migration to New England . His mother opposed slavery and fulfilled her domestic role as traditionally understood. Dr. Holmes was a leading figure in Boston intellectual and literary circles. Mrs. Holmes

9102-409: The proposition that the Court does not recognize an "unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases". However, although Buck v. Bell has not been overturned, "the Supreme Court has distinguished the case out of existence". From his earliest writings, Holmes demonstrated a lifelong belief that the decisions of judges were consciously or unconsciously result-oriented and reflected the mores of

9213-607: The public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination

9324-402: The rights of man in a moral sense are equally rights in the sense of the Constitution and the law". Holmes said, "I think our morally tinted words have caused a great deal of confused thinking". Nevertheless, in rejecting morality as a form of natural law outside of and superior to human enactments, Holmes was not rejecting moral principles that were the result of enforceable law: "The law

9435-403: The sales of shares of the capital stock of any corporation or association on margin, or to be delivered at a future day, shall be void   ...." Holmes he wrote that, as a general proposition, "neither a state legislature nor a state constitution can interfere arbitrarily with private business or transactions   .... But general propositions do not carry us far. While the courts must exercise

9546-524: The spring of that year, after President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers following the firing on Fort Sumter , he enlisted in the Massachusetts militia but returned briefly to Harvard College to participate in commencement exercises. During his senior year of college, at the outset of the American Civil War , Holmes enlisted in the Fourth Battalion of Infantry in the Massachusetts militia, then in July 1861, with his father's help, received

9657-455: The statute requiring sterilization of institutionalized persons was unconstitutional, violating what today is called " substantive due process ". Holmes repeated familiar arguments that statutes would not be struck down if they appeared on their face to have a reasonable basis. In support of his argument that the interest of "public welfare" outweighs the interest of individuals in their bodily integrity, he argued: We have seen more than once that

9768-406: The story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. In The Common Law , Holmes wrote that, even though the law "uses the language of morality, it necessarily ends in external standards not dependent on the consciousness of the individual" or on his moral culpability. Foreseeability of harm

9879-574: The time) from being required or permitted to work in a bakery more than sixty hours a week. The majority found that the statute "interferes with the right of contract between the employer and employes", and that the right of contract, though not explicit in the Constitution, "is part of the liberty of the individual protected by the Fourteenth Amendment", under which no state may "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." In his brief dissent, Holmes said that

9990-452: The unearthing of Pompeii and Herculaneum . The bald eagle was a common symbol used in this style, with the ellipse a frequent architectural motif. The classicizing manner of constructions and town planning undertaken by the federal government was expressed in early federal projects of lighthouses, harbor buildings, universities, and hospitals. It can be seen in the rationalizing, urbanistic layout of L'Enfant Plan of Washington and in

10101-408: The utilitarian view that law was a set of commands of the sovereign, rules of conduct that became legal duties. He rejected as well the views of the German idealist philosophers, whose views were then widely held, and the philosophy taught at Harvard, that the opinions of judges could be harmonized in a purely logical system. In the opening paragraphs of the book, he famously summarized his own view of

10212-528: The words and a dictionary but by considering their origin and the line of their growth. Holmes also insisted on the separation of "ought" and "is" , confusion of which he saw as an obstacle in understanding the realities of the law. "The law is full of phraseology drawn from morals, and talks about rights and duties , malice , intent , and negligence  – and nothing is easier in legal reasoning than to take these words in their moral sense". "Therefore nothing but confusion can result from assuming that

10323-430: The workman has a reasonable cause to believe that the space below is a private yard from which everyone is excluded, and which is used as a rubbish-heap, his act is not blameworthy, and the homicide is a mere misadventure. This "objective standard" adopted by common-law judges, Holmes thought, reflected a shift in community standards , away from condemnation of a person's act toward an impersonal assessment of its value to

10434-451: Was "free gift to the City." George W. Jackson, Jr., was mayor, and Hiram A. Tenney Librarian. The date was April 6, 1865. The final deed of conveyance specified among other conditions that the building must be used "exclusively for the city library," and that it "shall not be open for public use on the Lord's Day." The Board of Aldermen accepted the gift by vote on September 4, 1865, and passed

10545-534: Was General Wright who brusquely ordered Lincoln to safety. But for a certainty, the 6 foot 4 inch Lincoln, in frock coat and top hat, stood peering through field glasses from behind a parapet at the onrushing rebels.") and other sources state he likely was not present on the day Lincoln visited Fort Stevens. In the summer of 1864, Holmes returned to the family home in Boston, wrote poetry, and debated philosophy with his friend William James , pursuing his debate with philosophic idealism, and considered re-enlisting. By

10656-416: Was adhering to his own precedent, some later commentators accused Holmes of inconsistency, even of seeking to curry favor with his young admirers. In Abrams , the majority opinion relied on the clear-and-present-danger formulation of Schenck , claiming that the leaflets showed the necessary intent, and ignoring that they were unlikely to have any effect. By contrast, the Supreme Court's current formulation of

10767-570: Was also chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee . Hoar was a strenuous opponent of imperialism, and the legality of the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines was expected to come before the Court. Lodge, like Roosevelt, was a strong supporter of imperialism, which Holmes was expected to support as well. Despite Hoar's opposition, the president moved ahead on the matter. On December 2, 1902, he formally submitted

10878-462: Was claimed to be mentally defective. Later scholarship has shown that the suit was collusive, in that "two eugenics enthusiasts   ... had chosen Buck as a bit player in a test case that they had devised" and "had asked Buck's guardian to challenge [the Virginia sterilization law]". In addition, Carrie Buck was probably of normal intelligence. The argument made on her behalf was principally that

10989-710: Was connected to the leading families; Henry James Sr. , Ralph Waldo Emerson , and other transcendentalists were family friends. Known as "Wendell" in his youth, Holmes became lifelong friends with the brothers William James and Henry James Jr. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement and early on formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. He retained an interest in writing poetry throughout his life. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes and asked Emerson to read his attack on Plato 's idealist philosophy. Emerson famously replied, "If you strike at

11100-439: Was elected to the first Continental Congress by Marblehead . For their wedding gift Patrick had constructed a new mansion on State Street (the center of the city), now the library. After the formation of the United States, the vicissitudes of fortune turned against Nathaniel. The Continental Congress had unleashed a fleet of pirates against British commerce. Unencumbered by the war, the British moved to defend themselves. Most of

11211-433: Was essentially a shy and private woman [and] stand-offish.... As she grew older, her inclination to solitude became more pronounced, and in time she became a virtual recluse...". Whenever he could, Holmes visited London during the social season of spring and summer, and during his years as a lawyer and judge in Boston he formed romantic friendships with English women of the nobility, with whom he corresponded while at home in

11322-402: Was for sale and was enthusiastically purchased as new home for the library. Any building converted for library use must be reinforced to bear the weight of the books. The Tracy home was totally redesigned, internally, externally and grounds, by Arthur Gilman of Boston, a native of Newburyport, "making no charge for his services." A time capsule was placed in a cornerstone, stating that the building

11433-630: Was inadmissible in court. He reasoned that otherwise, police would have an incentive to circumvent the Fourth Amendment to obtain derivatives of the illegally obtained evidence. This later became known as the " fruit of the poisonous tree " doctrine. In 1927, Holmes wrote the 8–1 majority opinion in Buck v. Bell , a case that upheld the Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924 and the forced sterilization of Carrie Buck , who

11544-444: Was innocent of the charge ... of attempting to deduce law from a priori premises". We cannot all be Descartes or Kant , but we all want happiness. And happiness, I am sure from having known many successful men, cannot be won simply by being counsel for great corporations and having an income of fifty thousand dollars. An intellect great enough to win the prize needs other food beside success. The remoter and more general aspects of

11655-425: Was involved, and coercion was not exerted through impermissible means such as secondary boycotts, stating in his opinions that fundamental fairness required that workers be allowed to combine to compete on an equal footing with employers. He continued to give speeches and to write articles that added to or extended his work on the common law, most notably "Privilege, Malice and Intent", in which he presented his view of

11766-426: Was mustered out at the end of his enlistment term, returning to Boston and enrolling at Harvard Law School later that year. Holmes is said to have shouted to Abraham Lincoln to take cover during the Battle of Fort Stevens , although this is commonly regarded as apocryphal. Holmes himself expressed uncertainty about who had warned Lincoln ("Some say it was an enlisted man who shouted at Lincoln; others suggest it

11877-436: Was often an "inarticulate major premise", however. A judge was obliged to choose between contending legal arguments, each posed in absolute terms, and the true basis of his decision was sometimes drawn from outside the law, when precedents were lacking or were evenly divided. The common law evolves because civilized society evolves, and judges share the common preconceptions of the governing class. These views endeared Holmes to

11988-665: Was sent to Harvard College, matriculating with the Class of 1769. The Tracys were ardent supporters of the Patriot cause. In 1775 Nathaniel had constructed and outfitted the first Yankee privateer , and was so successful that a fleet of warships followed, all acting under letters of marque . He also built merchant ships and began buying property on the east coast of the colonies. It was said that he could journey by land to Philadelphia sleeping only in his own houses. In 1775 also he married Mary Lee, considered to be "a great beauty." Her father

12099-531: Was the idiom of America's first professional architects, such as Charles Bulfinch and Minard Lafever . Robert Adam and James Adam were leading influences through their books. In Salem, Massachusetts , there are numerous examples of American colonial architecture and Federal architecture in two historic districts: Chestnut Street District , which is part of the Samuel McIntire Historic District containing 407 buildings, and

12210-437: Was the key: "the general basis of criminal liability was knowledge, at the time of action, of facts from which common experience showed that certain harmful results were likely to follow." Tort liability, similarly, was imposed when circumstances were "such as would have led a prudent man to perceive danger, although not necessarily to foresee the specific harm". Likewise, with respect to contracts, "The law has nothing to do with

12321-541: Was vigorously prosecuting those suspected of sympathies with the recent Russian Revolution , as well as opponents of the war against Germany. The defendants in this case were socialists and anarchists, recent immigrants from Russia who opposed the apparent efforts of the United States to intervene in the Russian Civil War . They were charged with violating the Sedition Act of 1918, which was an amendment to

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