This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Quotes
Shall I ask what a court would be, unaided? The law is made by the Bar, even more than by the bench.
It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.
The Fourteenth Amendment… was adopted with a view to the protection of the colored race, but has been found to be equally important in its application to the rights of all.
Constitutions are intended to preserve practical and substantial rights, not to maintain theories.
Constitutional rights like others are matters of degree.
Constitutional law like other mortal contrivances has to take some chances.
But the provisions of the Constitution are not mathematical formulas having their essence in their form; they are organic living institutions transplanted from English soil. Their significance is vital, not formal.
If the thing has been practiced for two hundred years by common consent, it will need a strong case for the Fourteenth Amendment to affect it.
The interpretation of constitutional principles must not be too literal. We must remember that the machinery of government would not work if it were not allowed a little play in its joints.
