ATTORNEY GENERAL JACKSON'S ADDRESS 721 its law must be reviewed and rewritten in terms of current conditions if it is not to be a dead science. In this sense, this age is one of founding fathers to those who follow. Of course, they will reexamine the work of this day, and some will be rejected. Time will no doubt disclose that sometimes when our generation thinks it is correcting a mistake of the past, it is really only substituting one of its own. But the greater number of your judgments become a part of the basic philosophy on which a future society will adjust its conflicts. We who strive at your bar venture to think ourselves also in some measure consecreated to the task of administering justice. Recent opinions have reminded us that the initiative in reconsidering legal doctrine should come from an adequate challenge by counsel. Lawyers are close to the concrete consequences upon daily life of the pronouncements of this court. It is for us to bring the cases and to present for your corrective action any wrongs and injustices that result from operation of the law. However well the court and its bar may discharge their tasks, the destiny of this court is inseparably linked to the fate of our democratic system of representative government. Judicial functions, as we have evolved them, can be discharged only in that kind of society which is willing to submit its conflicts to adjudication and to subordinate power to reason. The future of the court may depend more upon the competence of the executive and legislative branches of government to solve their problems adequately and in time than upon the merit which is its own. There seems no likelihood that the tensions and conflicts of our society are to decrease. Time increases the disparity between underlying economic and social conditions, in response to which our federation was fashioned, and those in which it must function. Adjustment grows more urgent, more extensive, and more delicate. I see no reason to doubt that the problems of the next half century will test the wisdom and courage of this court as severely as any half century of its existence. In a system which makes legal questions of many matters that other nations treat as policy questions, the bench and the bar share an inescapable responsibility for fostering social and cultural attitudes which sustain a free and just government. Our jurisprudence is distinctive in that every great movement in American history has produced a leading case in this court. Ultimately, in some form of litigation, each underlying opposition and unrest in our society finds its way to this judgment seat. Here, conflicts were reconciled or, sometimes, unhappily, intensified. In this forum will be heard the unending contentions between liberty and authority, between progress and stability, between property rights and personal rights, and between those forces defined by James Bryce as centrifugal and centripetal, and whose struggle he declared made up most of history. The judgments and opinions of this court deeply penetrate the intellectual life of the nation. This court is more than an arbiter of cases and controversies. It is the custodian of a culture and is the protector of a philosophy of equal rights, of civil liberty, of tolerance, and of trusteeship of political and economic power, general acceptance of which gives us a basic national unity. Without it our representative system would be impossible. Lord Balfour made an observation about British government, equally applicable to American, and expressed a hope that we may well share, when he wrote: "Our alternating Cabinets, though belonging to different parties, have never differed about the foundation of society, and it is evident that our whole political machinery presupposes a people so fundamentally as one that they can afford to bicker; and so sure of their own moderation that they are not dangerously disturbed by the never-ending din of political conflict. May it always be so." ADDRESS OF HONORABLE CHARLES A. BEARDSLEY MR. CHIEF JUSTICE and ASSOCIATE JUSTICES OF THE I appreciate this opportunity, which has been accorded to me as the representative of the American Bar Association, to participate in this commemoration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first session of this honorable court. It is most fitting that this event should be commemorated. Its commemoration may well serve to recall to the minds of the American people the purposes of the founders of our national government, and the part, in the fulfillment of those purposes, that this court was intended to take, has taken, and will take in the years to come. And this commemoration may well serve, further, to challenge the American people to dedicate themselves anew to the fulfillment of those purposes. In the preamble of our Constitution, its framers recited the purposes to attain which the Constitution was to be ordained and established. In this recital, the purpose to "establish Justice" is second only to the purpose "to form a more perfect Union." PRESIDENT BEARDSLEY'S ADDRESS 723 Daniel Webster reminds us that justice is "the ligament that holds civilized beings together," and "the greatest interest of man on earth." To the end that they might "establish Justice," to the end that they might provide "the ligament that holds civilized beings together," to the end that they might strengthen the foundation of civilization on the North American continent, and to the end that they might serve "the greatest interest of man on earth," the framers of the Constitution provided therein for a federal judiciary, with this court as its head, to administer "justice" under and pursuant to law. In the words of President Washington this court was intended to be "the keystone of our political fabric." And it was intended to be the protector of our Constitution and of the inalienable rights of a free people. Gladstone's characterization of our Constitution as "the most wonderful product ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man" is justified by the fact that, for 150 years, this court has approached, as near as any human institution might well be expected to approach, the fulfillment of the purpose of the framers of the Constitution, to "establish Justice" for the American people. We may properly take pride in the extent to which this court has approached that fulfillment, realizing as we do, as Addison reminds us that to be just "to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of man," and that "to be perfectly just is an attribute of the Divine nature." Not only is it permissible on this occasion for us to recall that this court is a human institution, but it is also desirable for the American people to recall on this occasion that this human institution will endure, and that justice, under and pursuant to law, will be preserved for the American people, only so long as the American people, by their alertness, fidelity, and sanity, cause them to be preserved and to endure. For there are forces at work in the world today that are inimical to the continued fulfillment by this court of the purpose for which it was created. As a result of the workings of these forces in substantial parts of the world, national temples of justice are no longer honored or worthy of honor, and international morality and law are giving ground to international immorality and anarchy. And many hundreds of millions of people are engaged in war, seeking to settle their differences not according to justice but by force by the use of a means that is calculated to bring victory to the strongest or to the most unscrupulous of the contending peoples, wholly regardless of justice. And even within our own borders, there are forces at work that are inimical to the principles upon which our government is founded, including the principles of justice under and pursuant to law. Thus, there is a tendency among groups of employers and employees to use physical force as the means of settling differences instead of being willing to use the administration of justice-the institution devised by man, when he was emerging from barbarism, as a substitute for combats, for fights, and for wars-an institution that is calculated to bring victory to the contending party who has the most justice on his side, regardless of the relative physical strength of the contending parties. Also, we have among us many people who are eternally striving to inculcate doctrines that in other parts of the world are producing international lawlessness, anarchy, and war; doctrines that in other parts of the world are destroying temples of justice; and doctrines that in other parts of the world are depriving the people of their liberties and of their lives. And, finally, there is an all-too-widespread inclination to disregard the fundamental principles upon which our government and our civilization are founded, and an all-too-general disposition to ignore the historic warning that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." For 150 years the American people have honored, respected, and sustained this court, and through the years this court has gained for itself the gratitude and affectionate regard of the American people, because the American people have been steadfast in their devotion to the fundamental principles upon which our government is founded, and because the American people have seen in the record of this court the evidence of the striving by its members to be just "to the utmost of their abilities." This court has gained, and has retained, this honor, this respect, this gratitude, and this affectionate regard, although, in the words of a nineteenth-century publicist, this court has no "palaces or treasures, no arms but truth and wisdom, and no splendor but the justice and publicity of its judgments." On this occasion, as we commemorate the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the first session of this court, we dedicate ourselves anew to the task of defending our Constitution, to the task of guarding our liberties, and to the task of strengthening, defending, and preserving this court as "the keystone of our political fabric," as the protector of our Constitution, and as the guarantor of justice for the American people under and pursuant to law, not only for another 150 years but also for all time. JUSTICE UNDER LAW ADDRESS OF HONORABLE CHARLES E. HUGHES CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES MR. ATTORNEY GENERAL AND MR. BEARDSLEY: 725 The Court welcomes the words of appreciation you have spoken in recognition of the one hundred fiftieth anniversary of the day appointed for the first session of this tribunal. We are highly gratified at the presence of distinguished senators and representatives-the members of the Judiciary Committees of the Houses of Congress and of the special joint committee appointed in relation to this occasion. We trust that what has been said echoes a sentiment cherished in the hearts of the American people. They have again and again evinced the sound instinct which leads them, regardless of any special knowledge of legal matters, to cherish as their priceless possession the judicial institutions which safeguard the reign of law as opposed to despotic will. Democracy is a most hopeful way of life, but its promise of liberty and of human betterment will be but idle words save as the ideals of justice, not only between man and man, but between government and citizen, are held supreme. The states have the power and privilege of administering justice except in the field delegated to the nation, and in that field there is a distinct and compelling need. The recognition of this anniversary implies the persistence, through the vicissitudes of 150 years, of the deep and abiding conviction that amid the clashes of political policies, the martial demands of crusaders, the appeals of sincere but conflicting voices, the outbursts of passion and of the prejudices growing out of particular interests, there must be somewhere the quiet, deliberate, and effective determination of an arbiter of the fundamental questions which inevitably grow out of our constitutional system and must be determined in controversies as to individual rights. It is the unique function of this court not to dictate policy, not to promote or oppose crusades, but to maintain the balance between states and nation through the maintenance of the rights and duties of individuals. But, necessary as is this institution, its successful working has depended upon its integrity and the confidence thus inspired. By the method of selection, the tenure of office, the removal from the bias of political ambition, the people have sought to obtain as impartial a body as is humanly possible and to safeguard their basic interests from impairment by the partiality and the passions of politics. The ideals of the institution cannot, of course, obscure its human limitations. It does most of its work without special public attention to |