An introduction to Constitutional Law 100 Supreme Court cases everyone should know

Uncle Sam Recruiting Poster: I Want You for U.S. Army

The White Court (1916-1921). Seated, from left to right: Justices William R. Day, Joseph McKenna, and Chief Justice Edward D. White, and Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Willis Van Devanter. Standing, from left to right: Louis D. Brandeis, Mahlon Pitney, James C. McReynolds, and John H. Clarke.

Draft card

Draft Card

“The manifest purpose of such a publication was to create an attempt to defeat the war plans of the Government of the United States, by bringing upon the country the paralysis of a general strike, thereby arresting the production of all munitions and other things essential to the conduct of the war.”

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Justice Holmes dissented, joined by Justice Brandeis.

“It is only the present danger of immediate evil or an intent to bring it about that warrants Congress in setting a limit to the expression of opinion where private rights are not concerned.”

“The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”

Holmes adopted the “marketplace of ideas” concept from British philosopher John Stuart Mill. Can this theory be reconciled with Holmes’ claim in Lochner v. New York that the 14th Amendment does not adopt Mr. Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics?

“It is evident from the beginning to the end that the only object of the paper is to help Russia and stop American intervention there against the popular government—not to impede the United States in the war it was carrying on.”

Holmes upheld the prosecutions in Schenck and Debs, but found the prosecution unconstitutional in Abrams

In November 1919, eight months after Schenck and Debs were decided, the Court resolved Abrams v. United States. In this case, the defendants distributed leaflets that urged factory workers who made war munitions to go on strike. The federal government prosecuted them for violating the Espionage Act. The Supreme Court upheld their convictions by a 7-2 vote. Justice Clarke wrote the majority opinion. He found that this case was similar to Schenck and Debs: “The manifest purpose of such publications [the leaflets] was to create an attempt to defeat the war plans of the Government of the United States, by bringing upon the country the paralysis of a general strike, thereby arresting the production of all munitions and other things essential to the conduct of the war.”

In Abrams, Justices Holmes dissented, along with Justice Brandeis.