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
