Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. is remembered as one of the greatest and most eloquent Supreme Court Justices in the history of the United States, a man who would, in his lifetime, indirectly influence the fundamental boundaries of the law. His ideas on judicial restraint and free speech, among other things, shaped the majority opinion of the judges that followed him, resulting in a more defined and protective freedom to express one’s beliefs. Holmes served on the Court for a period of thirty years, and in those 3 decades, he expounded his beliefs on American law many times over.
Holmes was born in Massachusetts on March 8, 1841 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., was himself a very prominent man. Holmes Sr. was a doctor and a writer, appreciated as one of the greatest American writers of the time. For Holmes Jr., growing up in such a family had its influence. Surrounded by the Boston intellectual elite, Holmes from an early age was exposed to the importance of the pursuit of knowledge and the ambition of the great intellectual.
After attending Harvard College, Holmes went on to serve in the Civil War on the side of the Union, one of the most important events in his life. His time on the battlefield would influence his later attitudes more than any other experience in his youth. Holmes understood the importance of military service and the harsh lessons of reality, leading to several of his later decisions as a Justice being based around his experience with war.
As his service ended, Holmes accepted a position teaching at Harvard, only to later accept a position on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Years later, Senator Lodge would recommend him to Theodore Roosevelt as a possible Justice for the Supreme Court, and in 1902 Holmes was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
Often referred to as “The Great Dissenter”, Holmes spent much of his career as a Supreme Court Justice dissenting with the majority opinion in the Court, staunching and effectively defending his dissent with eloquence and poise. His strong belief in the principle of judicial restraint led him to oppose many of the decisions that the Supreme Court ruled on during his tenure, preferring instead that the legislatures of the people should decide the law. His belief on the fundamental nature of law was that it was molded by experience and relevance in the current period, therefore the job of the Supreme Court was not necessarily to decide if something was best for the country in terms of law, but rather if it was what the people wanted. This principle merged easily with his belief in judicial restraint, where the Supreme Court would step back and allow American society to run relatively on its own.
Several of Holmes’ cases are known for his famous dissents, such as the dissent in Lochner vs. New York and Schneck v. United States, where he presented ideas attacking laissez-faire and defining free speech, respectively.
Holmes’ tenure on the Supreme Court changed the law in many ways, and his influence and eloquence installed him in the annals of law history as one of the most famous Supreme Court Justices.
This was a really great post, Henry. I did some more research and found out that what brought Holmes most of his fame was actually a series of lectures he made called The Common Law. It starts with the phrase that made him famous internationally: "The life of law has not been logic: it has been experience". After this, he goes on to connect the law to social institutions and argue how the law is a series of responses to social problems.
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