Robert H. Jackson Quotes About Liberty
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Any court which undertakes by its legal processes to enforce civil liberties needs the support of an enlightened and vigorous public opinion which will be intelligent and discriminating as to what cases really are civil liberties cases and what questions really are involved in those cases.
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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.
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The priceless heritage of our society is the unrestricted constitutional right of each member to think as he will. Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it.
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Particularly when the war power is invoked to do things to the liberties of people, or to their property or economy that only indirectly affect conduct of the war and do not relate to the engagement of the war itself, the constitutional basis should be scrutinized with care. ... I would not be willing to hold that war powers may be indefinitely prolonged merely by keeping legally alive a state of war that had in fact ended. I cannot accept the argument that war powers last as long as the effects and consequences of war for if so they are permanent -- as permanent as the war debts.
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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.
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Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
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We can afford no liberties with liberty itself.
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One's right to life, liberty, and property depends on the outcome of no election.
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Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.
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It is not the function of government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
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There is no such thing as an achieved liberty: like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.
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Robert H. Jackson
- Born: February 13, 1892
- Died: October 9, 1954
- Occupation: Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
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