Hugo Black Quotes About Liberty
-
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.
→ -
Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they have, or the views they express, or the words they speak or write.
→ -
I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says.
→ -
A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion.
→ -
Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.
→ -
The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments-Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.
→ -
In my judgment the people of no nation can lose their liberty so long as a Bill of Rights like ours survives and its basic purposes are conscientiously interpreted, enforced and respected so as to afford continuous protection against old, as well as new, devices and practices which might thwart those purposes. I fear to see the consequences of the Court's practice of substituting its own concepts of decency and fundamental justice for the language of the Bill of Rights as its point of departure in interpreting and enforcing that Bill of Rights.
→ -
The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.
→ -
What finally emerges from the 'clear and present danger' cases is a working principle that the substantive evil must be extremely serious and the degree of imminence extremely high before utterances can be punished...It must be taken as a command of the broadest scope that explicit language, read in the context of a liberty-loving society, will allow.
→ -
The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political "mistakes" without being subjected to governmental penalties.
→
Hugo Black
- Born: February 27, 1886
- Died: September 25, 1971
- Occupation: Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Related Authors
-
Louis D. Brandeis Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Wiley Blount Rutledge Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
John Marshall Harlan II Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Felix Frankfurter Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
William J. Brennan Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
William Rehnquist Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Robert H. Jackson Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd U.S. President -
Frank Murphy Former Mayor of Detroit -
Fred M. Vinson Former United States Secretary of the Treasury -
Byron White Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Harry A. Blackmun Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
William O. Douglas Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Thurgood Marshall Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Harlan F. Stone Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Earl Warren Former Chief Justice of the United States -
Potter Stewart Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Arthur Goldberg Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Stanley Forman Reed Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States -
Abe Fortas Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States