The Life and Career of Justice Robert H. Jackson CONSTANCE L. MARTIN* Introduction Robert H. Jackson was one ofthe most influential Justices ofthe Supreme Court in the twentieth century. His tenure on the Court ran from 1941 to his death in 1954, and during that time he participated in landmark cases involving the programs implemented by Roosevelt’s New Deal to rescue the country from Depression, having previously served the administration in other roles. He authored a memorable dissent in United States v. Korematsu, the notorious Japanese internment case.1 He is also remembered for the role he served as the chiefAmerican prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal that tried Nazi leaders after World War II. In some ways, Jackson’s fierce independence and the lessons he learned growing up in a small town were the ideal training for the demands and competitiveness of the nation’s highest Court. That Jackson’s words and beliefs still have relevance in the twenty-first century is evidenced by the fact that both recent Supreme Court appointees quoted him during the confirmation hearings.2 In this essay, I will examine how Jackson’s life experiences influenced his legal career and informed hisjurisprudence, and to what extent Jackson lived up to his own vision ofthe role of a Supreme Court Justice. The Influence of a Small Town Born near the end of the nineteenth cen tury, Jackson was raised in southwestern New York State in a small town called Frewsburg. It was primarily a farming region, although the family’s business activities in cluded horse-breeding, which contributed to Jackson’s lifelong love of horses and out door sports. Jackson’s descriptions of Frews burg and Jamestown, a city fifteen miles away where Jackson later studied, emphasized the THE LIFE AND CAREER OF JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON 43 communities’ core values of self-sufficiency and individualism. There was respect for those who worked hard, and distrust ofthose who did not. Jackson explained, “To an unfortunate in dividual there was utmost kindness, but if one was a pauper that was probably his own fault. He either drank, or gambled, or was lazy or something evil.”3 Jackson’s own family was thrifty, hard working, and even more independent than their neighbors: they were ‘“sturdy and un compromising Democrats’ in an area that was ‘overwhelmingly Republican.’”4 Although Jackson’s parents were not religious, they were nominal members of the local church and taught their son “to respect other people’s reli gion and never to start a religious argument.”5 He described his relatives as “practical people who were not carried away by either religious emotions or any other... [They were] too busy making a living, to work life’s annoyances up into a philosophy.”6 This individualism and re gional pride developed Jackson’s fundamental beliefin persistence and independent thought, and the conviction that hard work is ultimately rewarded. It is likely he was also influenced by the local justices of the peace, whom he saw dispensingjustice and whose “decisions repre sented the community’s collective idea of the decentthing.”7 A sense offairness would char acterize Jackson’s work in government, ad vancing and defending New Deal programs. Jackson’s Education Jackson is a transitional figure between two very different traditions oflegal education be cause he was the last Supreme Court Justice to have received the traditional law-office “ap prentice” training rather than a formal lawschool curriculum. Jackson’s determination to obtain more than the basic education avail able in Frewsburg sent him north to Jamestown for a post-graduate year of high school. He later spoke often and affectionately of the En glish teacher, Mary Willard, who befriended him there, encouraged him to read the classics and to debate and “to develop a notable ca pacity for writing and speaking clear, simple, direct English.”8 She was one ofthe most im portant influences of Jackson’s life, instilling in him not only a love of books but also legal ambitions.9 In 1911, while still attending school, Jackson began clerking part time in the Jamestown law offices of his cousin, Frank Mott, as had been the tradition for aspiring lawyers in...