Northern Security Case Effectively Dissolving Roosevelt's Sherman Act

Oliver Wendell Homes
 Holmes: “Many men especially as they grow older resent attempts to pus
analysis beyond consecrated phrases or to formulate anew. Such attempts
disturb the intellectual rest for which we long.”
 Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was born on March 8, 1841 in Boston and his
father was a celebrated doctor in the area, who himself spent a year in
Harvard Law only to turn to medicine
 Holmes grew up with all the advantages of Puritan aristocracy, took interest
in Philosophy, and had married Fanny Dixwell, with whom he was happily
married for almost 60 years
o Dixwell died in 1929 never blessed with children
o Holmes wrote to a friend: ‘For sixty years she made life poetry for me’
 Holmes was commissioned to be a lieutenant where he was wounded thrice
in the war between states.
 After this, he entered Harvard Law, even though he initially viewed the study
of law as ‘a ragbag of details’
o He later wrote about law: ‘every calling is great when greatly pursued’
o Also, Holmes eventually viewed law as ‘an anthropological document’
which revealed the history of human culture
o Holmes: ‘the business of law-school is not sufficiently described when
you merely say that it is to teach law or make lawyers. It is to teach
law in the grand manner and to make great lawyers’
 Holmes was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1867 and worked at a law
firm shortly after
o After this, Holmes taught constitutional law at Harvard and lectured
on the common law at the Lowell Institute
 Holmes viewed that legal history was not based on logic but in experience
and necessities of the time, always in the process of growth
o Holmes: ‘If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look
at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences…’
 By the time he was past forty, Homes was offered full professorship at
Harvard Law at the same time, judge Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts and he chose the latter
 In 1902, Holmes was appointed by Roosevelt to sit in the Supreme Court as
associate justice with one of the conditions being that Holmes was ‘pro-labor’
o However, Holmes would prove his objectivity in dissenting in
Northern Security case effectively dissolving Roosevelt’s Sherman Act
o He was later called the ‘great dissenter’ not by sheer number of
dissents but the greatness of his dissents and the greatness of issues
they involved
 Dissents of Holmes fell into two main categories:
o Social legislation- Holmes saw no constitutional barriers in improving
labor conditions or the cause of women
o Civil liberty- Holmes wanted to uphold traditional liberties and
individual freedom
 Holmes was a proponent of giving room for differences to accommodate
different conditions of different people
 Holmes v. Marshall:
o Marshall was also a proponent of flexibility in Constitutional
interpretation but only to uphold powers of Congress and not let
states experiment
 Marshall was close to the framing of the Constitution and did
not deal with economic and social conditions Holmes
encountered
 Marshall was preoccupied by upholding laws on commerce
and contracts
o Holmes was concerned with restraining the Constitution within some
measurable bounds as it had become too flexible that conservative
judges were permitted to interpret it according to their prerogative
 Yet Holmes was an advocate of free trade
 Holmes advocated for legislation to experiment and quell
social evil
 The Fourteenth Amendment became the dogma for lassiez faire but Holmes
was quick to point out that the Constitution was not meant to embody a
particular economic theory
o He also posited that judges should not read their own views into the
Constitution and act as legislators
 Holmes dissents favored the liberal interpretation of civil liberties and this
made him infamous for being liberal to the extent of radical
o However, Holmes’ personal social and economic philosophy was very
conservative and just grew more complex as he grew older
 Another misunderstanding on Holmes was that he was idealistic based on his
language
o Contrary, Holmes was never too greatly concerned over
conventionalities of the judicial office and he was full of mild pranks
and humor
 Holmes eventually resigned from the Supreme Court in 1932 and died in
1935
 After Holmes left, his dissenting opinions became constitutional doctrines as
the basis for reconstituting the Court
 Holmes is hailed as the greatest American judge since John Marshall

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Oliver Wendell Homes

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