Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

(credit: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.)

(born March 8, 1841, Boston, Mass.—died March 6, 1935, Washington, D.C.) U.S. jurist, legal historian, and philosopher. He was the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes and Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of a Massachusetts supreme court justice. As an officer in the American Civil War, he was seriously wounded three times. He practiced law in Boston from 1867, eventually serving as an associate justice (1882–99) and then chief justice (1899–1902) of the state supreme court. In The Common Law (1881), he advanced the notion of law as accumulated experience rather than science. Appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt in 1902, Holmes advocated judicial restraint, maintaining that lawmaking was the business of legislative bodies rather than the courts. In Schenk v. U.S. (1919), he articulated the “clear and present danger” test for proposed restrictions on freedom of speech. Many of his vigorous and lucid opinions, including dissenting opinions (he was known as “The Great Dissenter”), became classic interpretations of the law, and he is regarded as one of the foremost jurists of the modern age. He served until 1932.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. (1841–1935) Supreme Court justice; born in Boston, Mass. (son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809–94). Raised among Boston's intellectual community, he fought for the Union in the Civil War and was seriously wounded three times. After the war, he entered a private law practice in Boston and edited the American Law Review and the twelfth edition of James Kent's legal classic, Commentaries on American Law (1873) as well as penning the essays that comprised his seminal work, The Common Law (1881). He served the Massachusetts Supreme Court (1882–1902), as chief justice from 1899. President Theodore Roosevelt named him to the U.S. Supreme Court (1902–32), where he was known as "The Great Dissenter" for the clarity and verve with which he wrote his frequent dissenting opinions. Although since revered by liberals for his opinions on such issues as free speech, during his tenure on the Supreme Court he promoted judicial restraint, believing that lawmaking was better left to the constituents and the legislature. He retired from the bench at the age of 91.