In our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religous persuasions whose fanatcal conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds-that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.
Robert H. Jackson Quotes
We granted certiorari, and in this Court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.
There is danger that, if the court does not temper its doctrinaire logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact. (Terminiello v. City of Chicago, 1949)
While the Declaration was directed against an excess of authority, the Constitution was directed against anarchy.
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.
A confession is wholly and incontestably voluntary only if a guilty person gives himself up to the law and becomes his own accuser.
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.
Civil liberties had their origin and must find their ultimate guarantee in the faith of their people.
The power of citizenship as a shield against oppression was widely known from the example of Paul’s Roman citizenship, which sent the centurion scurrying to his higher-ups with the message: “Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.”
