Dem
47
GOP
53
We have no idea how many readers have heard of Judge Learned Hand. Probably most of our lawyer-readers have. As to the other readers? Maybe not so much.
Hand is, arguably, the most important judge in American history who did not serve on the Supreme Court. His name was frequently mentioned, and both Republican (Calvin Coolidge) and Democratic (Franklin D. Roosevelt) administrations gave serious consideration to elevating him, but it never happened. There are many theories as to why; maybe it was his youthful political activism, maybe it was his allies stepping on too many important toes with their advocacy on his behalf, maybe it was something else.
Despite never landing a seat on the big court, Hand nonetheless put together a legendary career. At 37, he was one of the youngest people ever appointed to a federal judgeship. He ultimately served on active status for 42 years (1909-51), and then on senior status for another 10 years. During that time, he earned a reputation as an expert in many different areas of law, from torts to antitrust to admiralty. He was a prolific and skillful writer, such that he is still the lower-court judge most cited in Supreme Court decisions. He also had enormous impact on the judicial process, in particular persuading his colleagues that the actions of Congress should be overruled only in the most extreme of circumstances.
Hand's judicial career is not actually the reason we are writing about him today, however. No, it is because he serves as an excellent bridge from the Never Forget series to the new series we will start next week. When World War II commenced in Europe (in 1939), he was strongly anti-isolationist, but felt that his age and official position meant that he should keep his opinions to himself. Once the U.S. entered World War II, however, he became an active supporter of the war effort, and of various causes related to the war, particularly humanitarian relief and protecting civil liberties.
For most of his career, Hand was well known to judicial branch and Washington insiders, but not to the general public. That changed on May 21, 1944, during New York City's celebration of "I Am an American Day." He agreed to deliver a brief speech to over 1 million people in Central Park, many of them newly anointed American citizens. Here's the text of the address:
We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedoms from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought; this we now believe that we are by way of winning. What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.
The address absolutely caught fire—went viral, if we may use modern parlance—and was widely reprinted. It made Hand into a celebrity overnight, and he remained so for the remainder of his life (he died in 1961).
Hand and his audience were, of course, watching events unfold in Europe and Asia. And what he decided is that, for America to be America, we must embrace immigrants. We must be vigilant about leaders who would deprive citizens of their freedom. We must think critically, and be empathetic when it comes to other people. And (in a clear allusion to the Gettysburg address), we must do these things to honor the sacrifices of those who were fighting and dying on the other side of the world. And the million people in his audience that day, and the tens of millions more who read his words in print, thought he was onto something. It's remarkable how relevant his words seem today, 80 years after he first delivered them.
Have a good weekend, all! (Z)