Jackson, Robert Houghwout (b. Spring Creek, Pa., 13 Feb. 1892; d. Washington, D.C., 9 Oct. 1954; interred Maple Grove Cemetery, Jamestown, N.Y.), associate justice, 1941–1954. Born in Pennsylvania, Jackson and his family moved to Frewsburg, New York, when he was five years old; there Jackson's father owned and operated a hotel and livery stable. After graduation from high school in 1910, Jackson went to work as a clerk in Jamestown in the law office of Frank Mott—a figure in Democratic circles. Jackson spent a year (1911) at Albany Law School and then returned to his clerkship in Mott's office. He passed the bar in November of 1913. Accordingly, he is the last member of the Supreme Court to have qualified for the bar by “reading law” in an office rather than through graduation from law school. For the next twenty years, Jackson built and maintained a thriving and highly remunerative general practice. He married Irene Gerhardt on 24 April 1916.

Before he entered the practice of law, Jackson became enmeshed in politics as a Democratic state committeeman—a Democrat in a Republican area. Following Woodrow Wilson's victory in 1912, Jackson worked closely with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy, on problems of federal patronage. With Roosevelt in the governor's chair from 1928 through 1932, Jackson again surfaced as an informal adviser. He stumped throughout New York for Roosevelt's presidential campaign in 1932 and then went to Washington in February 1934 as general counsel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. After climbing up the ladder through various legal positions in the Treasury and later the Department of Justice, Roosevelt in 1938 named him solicitor general.

Jackson in 1952 described his tenure as solicitor general as the happiest period of his public life. The litigation of the United States proceeded at an orderly pace and Jackson placed many important matters before the Court. At the time of Jackson's appointment to the solicitor generalship, Roosevelt had discussed with Jackson the possibility of a seat in the cabinet as attorney general or on the Supreme Court, but the two had decided it best to place Frank Murphy as attorney general. Early in 1940, FDR moved Murphy from Justice to the Supreme Court and Jackson into the cabinet as attorney general. Jackson's tenure as attorney general proved brief.

Roosevelt in June 1941 named Jackson to the Supreme Court. Once again, FDR had dangled higher office—the chief justiceship—before Jackson and then decided to elevate Harlan F. Stone. Contrary to the expectations of many observers, once on the Supreme Court Jackson did not coalesce with New Dealers such as William O. Douglas; instead, he adopted a position of strong nationalism together with an attachment to judicial self‐restraint. During his tenure as associate justice, Jackson's judicial philosophy and voting behavior paralleled the moderate conservatism of Justice Felix Frankfurter.

On the issue of federalism, a crucial one for the survival of the New Deal, Jackson charted a course that firmly committed him to national over state power (see Federalism). For example, in Edwards v. California (1941), the Court invoked the federal commerce power to strike down California's “Okie law.” Jackson concurred and argued that the right of entry into any state is a “privilege” of U.S. citizenship. “If national citizenship means less than this, it means nothing” (p. 183). In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), Jackson wrote the majority opinion in which the Court upheld the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 and thereby ended the last vestages of dual federalism.

Jackson showed a subtle understanding of the importance of the values in the First Amendment. In West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), for example, he wrote for the majority in striking down a mandatory flag salute; “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” (p. 642). Much the same concern emerged in United States v. Ballard (1944) in which he dissented from a decision to uphold a conviction on mail fraud against an offbeat religion: “I would dismiss the indictment and have done with this business of judicially examining other people's faiths” (p. 95).

During World War II, and especially after the Nuremberg Trials, Jackson began to see the need to balance freedom and public order. In Terminiello v. Chicago (1949), in which the Court reversed a conviction for breach of peace, Jackson chided the majority for a “doctrinaire” view that might “convert the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact” (p. 37). Despite the threat to the First Amendment, Jackson supported federal measures to deal with domestic communism in cases such as Dennis v. United States (1951) and American Communications Association v. Douds (1950).

In May 1945, President Harry Truman asked Jackson to serve as chief counsel for the United States in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals. He encountered many difficulties at Nuremberg, but he and others amassed persuasive evidence against the defendants.

Jackson returned to the Court in the fall of 1946. In the meantime, Chief Justice Stone had died. At the death of Stone, rumors about successors swirled around Washington. The names of Jackson and Justice Hugo Black figured prominently on this list. Allies of the two mobilized against each other. Ultimately, both Black and Jackson threatened to resign if the president nominated the other. This highly public controversy embarrassed Black and Jackson and the Court (see Federalism). President Truman instead chose Fred Vinson as chief justice.

Near the end of the 1953 term, a serious heart attack felled Jackson. Nonetheless, he took part in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In the fall of 1954, he once again took his chair as the term began but he died a few days later.

Bibliography

Eugene Gerhart , America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson (1958).
Alfred E. Kelly , Jackson, Robert Houghwout, in Dictionary of American Biography: Supplement Five, 1951–1955, edited by John A. Garraty (1977).
Glendon Schubert , Dispassionate Justice: A Synthesis of the Judicial Opinions of Robert H. Jackson (1969).

Gregory A. Caldeira

JACKSON, ROBERT HOUGHWOUT

Robert Houghwout Jackson served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Internal Revenue, attorney general of the United States, and justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During his service on the Court from 1941 to 1954 Jackson delivered unconventional opinions that did not always coincide with those of the president who had appointed him, franklin d. roosevelt. Jackson was nonetheless chosen to be chief counsel at the nuremberg trials following world war ii.

Jackson's straightforward style as a lawyer and a justice stemmed from his rural upbringing.

The first Jacksons immigrated to the United States from England in 1819. They settled in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania, where Jackson was born on February 13, 1892. His father, William Eldred Jackson, provided for the family through farming and lumbering.

In September 1911 Jackson entered Albany Law School, passing the bar in 1913. He then began a lengthy career with the establishment of a law practice at Jamestown, New York, and formed a friendship with fellow New Yorker Roosevelt.

In 1934 Jackson was selected by the recently elected president Roosevelt to serve as general

counsel for the Federal Bureau of Internal Revenue. In 1936 he became assistant attorney general of the United States, a position he held until 1938. Between 1938 and 1939, he performed the duties of U.S. solicitor general. He acted as the U.S. attorney general from 1940 until his appointment in July 1941 as justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jackson earned the trust and admiration of his associates through his wit and wisdom. Many of his philosophies on essential constitutional issues came to be known as Jacksonisms. Throughout his career he withheld blind praise of the U.S. system of government. He stated, "A free man must be a reasoning man, and he must dare to doubt what a legislative or electoral majority may most passionately assert" (American Communications Ass'n v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382 70 S. Ct. 674, 94 L. Ed. 925 [1950]).

Jackson voted against government actions that imposed upon free speech and religion, and voiced mistrust of labor unions. Many of his opinions were dissents from a majority that tended to uphold union interests and to support new deal legislation.

Following the end of the second world war, Jackson was chosen as chief counsel for the United States at the Nuremberg trials, where Nazi leaders were tried for war crimes. Included among the defendants was Hermann Goering, second in command of the Nazi regime, and Adolf Hitler's designated successor.

In his opening remarks before Goering's trial began, Jackson noted the place of the proceddings in history when he said:

We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well. We must summon such detachment and intellectual integrity to our task that this trial will commend itself to posterity as fulfilling humanity's aspirations to do justice.

On September 30 and October 1, 1946, the Nuremberg tribunal found nineteen of the twenty-two defendants guilty on one or more counts. Twelve defendants, including Goering, were sentenced to death by hanging.

For his success at Nuremberg, Jackson received a number of honors in the United States, including honorary doctoral degrees from Dartmouth College and Syracuse University. Recognition also came from other nations, including honorary degrees in law from the University of Brussels and the University of Warsaw.

"It 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 jackson

After the trials, Jackson continued his service on the Court. He died on October 9, 1954.

further readings

Barrett, John Q. 2002. "A Jackson Portrait for Jamestown, 'A Magnet in the Room.'" Buffalo Law Review 50 (fall): 809–17.

Barry, Graeme A. 2000. "'The Gifted Judge': An Analysis of the Judicial Career of Robert H. Jackson." Alberta Law Review 38 (November): 880–902.

Demon, Charles S., et al. 1969. Mr. Justice Jackson: Four Lectures in His Honor. New York: William Nelson Crumble Foundation, Columbia Univ. Press.

Gerhart, Eugene C. 2003. Robert H. Jackson: Country Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, America's Advocate. Buffalo, N.Y.: W. S. Hein; Jamestown, N.Y.: R H. Jackson Center.

——. 1961. Lawyer's Judge. Albany: Q Corp.

——. 1958. America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Jackson, Robert H. 1951. Wartime Security and Liberty under Law. Buffalo: Univ. of Buffalo School of Law.

——. 1947. The Naürnberg Case. New York: Knopf.

Prosaic, Joseph E. 1994. Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. New York: Penguin Books.

Rosenbaum, Alan S. 1993. Prosecuting Nazi War Criminals. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.

Schubert, Glendon. 1969. Dispassionate Justice: A Synthesis of the Judicial Opinions of Robert H. Jackson. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Taylor, Telford. 1992. The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. New York: Knopf.

U.S. Supreme Court. 1955. Proceedings of the Bar and Officers of the Supreme Court of the United States, April 4, 1955, and Proceedings before the Supreme Court of the United States, April 4, 1955, in Memory of Robert Houghwout Jackson. Washington, D.C.: United States Supreme Court Bar.

Robert Houghwout Jackson

Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892-1954) was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg war trials.

Robert H. Jackson was born on Feb. 13, 1892, in Spring Creek, Pa. He spent a year at the Albany Law School, apprenticed with a local lawyer, and was admitted to the bar in 1913. He set up practice in Jamestown, N.Y.

A passionate Democrat, Jackson supported New York's governor Franklin Roosevelt. After Roosevelt's election to the U.S. presidency in 1932, Jackson went to Washington to serve as general counsel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. After serving as assistant attorney general in charge of the Tax Division of the Department of Justice, and then as head of the Antitrust Division, he was named solicitor general in 1938. In 1940 he became attorney general and in 1941 took his oath as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

During Jackson's tenure one of the chief public issues was the role and power of the Supreme Court. In his book The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy (1941) Jackson castigated the Court's willingness to establish itself as a superlegislature over the decisions of the popularly elected Congress and president; he called for a more restrained role. With some notable exceptions, Jackson continued this argument throughout his years on the Court. In one of his first major opinions, in 1942, the Federal government was granted extremely broad powers of economic regulation under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Concerning the nation's economy, supremacy was placed firmly in the hands of Congress.

Devoted to civil liberties, Jackson worked to determine how the Court could protect unpopular minorities against persecution and oppression by inflamed majority rule. In 1943 he delivered an opinion for the Court upholding the constitutional right of Jehovah's Witnesses (a religious group) to refuse to salute the American flag. Toward the end of his life, however, he joined Justice Felix Frankfurter in thinking that the Court should play a relatively minor role in protecting civil liberties. In his posthumous The Supreme Court in the American System of Government (1955), Jackson attacked the civil libertarian views of his colleagues Hugo Black and William O. Douglas.

Justice Jackson left the Court for a year in 1945-1946 to serve as the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg war trials in Germany. Two books by him came out of this experience: The Case against the Nazi War Criminals (1946) and The Nuremberg Case (1947). He died on Oct. 9, 1954, in Washington.

Further Reading

There is no scholarly biography of Jackson. Eugene C. Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson (1958), is useful but biased in Jackson's favor. Dispassionate Justice: A Synthesis of the Judicial Opinions of Robert H. Jackson, edited by Glendon Schubert (1969), contains an interesting introduction. □

Robert Houghwout Jackson , 1892–1954, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1941–54), b. Spring Creek, Pa. Despite the fact that he did not have a law degree, he was admitted to the bar in 1913 after a brief period of study at Albany law school. In 1934, he was appointed general counsel of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. From 1936 to 1938 he served as assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. A strong advocate of New Deal policies, Jackson became (1938) U.S. solicitor general. In 1940, he became U.S. attorney general, and in 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the Supreme Court. He went on leave (1945–46) from the bench to be U.S. chief counsel at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. His feud with Justice Hugo L. Black probably eliminated him from consideration for chief justice when Harlan Stone died. His best-known decision is West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943), which struck down statutes that made saluting the flag mandatory for school children, thereby significantly expanding the scope of free speech laid out in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Known for his eloquent literary style, Jackson defended freedom of religion with particular distinction. He wrote The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy (1940), The Case against the Nazi War Criminals (1945), and The Supreme Court in the American System of Government (1955).

Bibliography: See N. Feldman, Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices (2010).