Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas

by Stephen Budiansky

Overview

The extraordinary story of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most influential justice.

Oliver Wendell Holmes twice escaped death as a young Union officer in the Civil War when musket balls missed his heart and spinal cord by a fraction of an inch at the Battles of Ball’s Bluff and Antietam. He lived ever after with unwavering moral courage, unremitting scorn for dogma, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity.

Named to the Supreme Court by Theodore Roosevelt at age sixty-one, he served for nearly three decades, writing a series of famous, eloquent, and often dissenting opinions that would prove prophetic in securing freedom of speech, protecting the rights of criminal defendants, and ending the Court’s reactionary resistance to social and economic reforms.

As a pioneering legal scholar, Holmes revolutionized the understanding of common law by showing how the law always evolved to meet the changing needs of society. As an enthusiastic friend and indefatigable correspondent, he wrote thousands of personal letters brimming with humorous philosophical insights, trenchant comments on the current scene, and an abiding joy in fighting the good fight.

Drawing on many previously unpublished letters and records, Stephen Budiansky’s definitive biography offers the fullest portrait yet of this pivotal American figure, whose zest for life, wit, and intellect left a profound legacy in law and Constitutional rights, and who was an inspiring example of how to lead a meaningful life in a world of uncertainty and upheaval.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393634723
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/28/2019
Pages:	592
Sales rank:	915,516
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Stephen Budiansky is a historian, biographer, and the author of Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas and Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel. A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Prologue: "What a Medley of a Man!" 1

1 Dr. Holmes's Boston 23

2 A New England Boyhood 48

3 Harvard's Regiment 72

4 The Wilderness 100

5 "Society of Jobbists" 127

6 The Common Law 152

7 Holmes J. 179

8 Labor, Capital, and Dames 202

9 Ideals and Doubts 229

10 "So Great and So Different" 257

11 Due Process 283

12 1720 Eye Street 306

13 Holmes Dissenting 335

14 Free Speech 366

15 Taft's Court 396

16 "My Last Examination" 420

Epilogue: "Men Who Never Heard of Him Will Be Moving to the Measure of His Thought" 453

Abbreviations 463

Notes 465

Bibliography 525

Index of Court Cases 539

Subject Index 545

Editorial Reviews

04/29/2019

Historian and journalist Budiansky (Code Warriors) delivers a well-crafted and accessible biography of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841–1935). Drawing on previously unpublished letters and other sources, Budiansky illuminates Holmes’s life inside and outside the courtroom: Holmes fought (and nearly died) for the Union in the Civil War, and his letters from the front offer vivid, compelling descriptions of day-to-day horrors and insight into how the war influenced his philosophy, making him skeptical of certainty but nonetheless committed to action. Though happily married, Holmes had numerous long and close relationships with women, with whom he regularly corresponded; he comes across as an erudite correspondent whose respect for the equality of women was far ahead of his time. Budiansky’s discussions of Holmes’s work on the Supreme Court after his 1902 appointment cites both his influential majority decisions and dissents—such as his dissent in Abrams v. U.S., which introduced the now-deeply-embedded idea that America is best served not by limiting speech but by protecting “the free trade of ideas”—and notes contradictions between Holmes’s private beliefs and his judicial opinions. This wide-ranging examination of Holmes as an individual and of the law he helped make will appeal to those with an interest in constitutional law as well as to general readers. Photos. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"Especially consequential....Budiansky's is now the most engrossing of the major Holmes biographies."

Harvard Magazine - Lincoln Caplan

"Consistently gripping reading....possessed of a zest and omnivorous curiosity that reflects the boundless energy of its subject."

Christian Science Monitor - Steve Donoghue

"Discriminating, genial, and admiring."

The Nation - Brenda Winapple

"A lively and informative portrait of the great justice."

Robert C. Post

★ 2019-02-13

A top-notch new biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841-1935).

Turning the influential judge's life into a page-turner seems a highly difficult task, but journalist and historian Budiansky (Code Warriors: NSA's Codebreakers and the Secret Intelligence War Against the Soviet Union, 2016, etc.) succeeds admirably. The son of a well-known physician and an abolitionist, Holmes dropped out of Harvard to enlist in 1861. During three years of Civil War service, he suffered terribly and almost died. The war eliminated his youthful ideals but may have contributed to his judicial philosophy. Recovering from injuries, he completed law school and launched a legal career, impressing colleagues with his charm and legal scholarship. His writing is still quoted, and his briefs were more succinct than most. Appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1882 and U.S. Supreme Court in 1902, Holmes became a major figure in overturning the traditional view that law stems from authority—codes, the Bible, the Constitution—in favor of legal realism, which interprets law through its effect on society. Although still known as the "great dissenter" (not exactly a mark of success), his decisions made him popular among progressives and provided legal support for economic regulation and the expansion of personal freedom. Conservatives may cringe at his quip, "I really like paying taxes. With them, I buy civilization," but Budiansky emphasizes that Holmes' vaunted liberalism was evident only in his legal decisions and sometimes not even there. An abolitionist before the war, he showed little sympathy for African-Americans afterward. He opposed women's suffrage and despised labor unions, socialists, and other movements that claimed to oppose injustice. Yet, a man of "skeptical temperament to the core…he never mistook his own views for eternal truth." Absent a clear danger, he maintained that obnoxious opinions deserved the same rights as his own. This remains a minority view in America, and legal realism, in decline since the 1960s, shows no signs of reviving.

An entirely fascinating biography of one of America's most important legal minds.

Kirkus Reviews

"Stephen Budiansky’s Oliver Wendell Holmes portrays the ultimate giant of American law and intellectual history. In this stunningly researched and compellingly written biography Budiansky brings Holmes back to life. This is an astonishing look at what made our native jurisprudence genius tick. Highly recommended!"

Douglas Brinkley

"Lively and engaging.… [A]t a time when progressives and conservatives alike are so sure of their own premises that America is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War, the ‘skeptical humility,’ as Budiansky puts it, that Holmes took from the war seems more elusive, and more urgently needed, than ever."

Jeffrey Rosen

"Discriminating, genial, and admiring."

Nation - Brenda Wineapple

"Budiansky’s account shines."

Wall Street Journal - Adam J. White

"The longevity and complexity of Holmes’s life and judicial philosophy present a formidable challenge to a biographer. Stephen Budiansky has met that challenge in distinguished fashion. Weaving together Holmes’s private and public lives with a clarity that reveals what had often seemed obscure in previous biographies, this book also shows how Holmes’s experience as a thrice-wounded Civil War officer subtly shaped his social and juridical ideas during the next seventy years."

James M. McPherson James M. McPherson

"A lively, accessible book."

Noah Feldman

"Superb.... A gracefully written narrative full of well-chosen detail."

Journal of American History - William P. LaPiana

"The longevity and complexity of Holmes’s life and judicial philosophy present a formidable challenge to a biographer. Stephen Budiansky has met that challenge in distinguished fashion. Weaving together Holmes’s private and public lives with a clarity that reveals what had often seemed obscure in previous biographies, this book also shows how Holmes’s experience as a thrice-wounded Civil War officer subtly shaped his social and juridical ideas during the next seventy years."

James M. McPherson