Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.
Robert H. JacksonTags: censorship
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. JacksonStruggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men. Nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon but at other times and places the ends have been racial or territorial security, support of a dynasty or regime, and particular plans for saving souls. As first and moderate methods to attain unity have failed, those bent on its accomplishment must resort to an ever-increasing severity. . . . Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
It seems trite but necessary to say that the First Amendment to our Constitution was designed to avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. There is no mysticism in the American concept of the State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We set up government by consent of the governed, and the Bill of Rights denies those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that consent. Authority here is to be controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
Tags: freedom nationalism democracy america united-states usa dissent government first-amendment thoughts united-states-of-america barnette supreme-court unanimity us
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One s right to life liberty and property to free speech a free press freedom of worship and assembly and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote they depend on the outcome of no elections.
Robert H. JacksonIf there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein."
[West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)]
Tags: freedom 1943 freedom-of-religion
The price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.
Robert H. JacksonThe matter does not appear to appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then.
Robert H. JacksonIt is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.
Robert H. JacksonTags: government citizens oversight
Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system, it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable.
Robert H. JacksonThat 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.
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