Althouse: "I know not what the temple of law may be to those who have entered it, but to me it seems very cold and cheerless about the threshold."

June 24, 2011

"I know not what the temple of law may be to those who have entered it, but to me it seems very cold and cheerless about the threshold."

Said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., after quitting law school.

30 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: Holmes Jr. was wrong on eugenics, but what do you expect from Boston Brahmins? They were wrong about a lot of things.; 6/24/11, 10:20 AM
Mick said...: Right. What is the law to "law profs" and other assorted Lawyers, and Constitutional scholars, who blithely allow the blatant Usurpation of the Presidency by a man who was born British of a British subject father (not natural born, i.e born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents)? Is it just for fun and profit? Are they upholders of the law, or just part of a club?

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/us-supreme-court-precedent-states-that-obama-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/#comment-18410; 6/24/11, 10:21 AM
traditionalguy said...: Holmes was an idealist who wanted to see happy men imposing eugenics theories to end lives for the socially inept. Now he is one idealist type that I hope to see die lonely and miserable deaths at a young age so that I hate can spit on their graves.; 6/24/11, 10:21 AM
Scott M said...: Holmes Jr. was wrong on eugenics, but what do you expect from Boston Brahmins? They were wrong about a lot of things.

Are you suggesting that someone from an Ivy League school "acted stupidly"?; 6/24/11, 10:26 AM
Fred4Pres said...: Okay Mick, I want you on the Supreme Court!; 6/24/11, 10:27 AM
traditionalguy said...: Mick...You need to take a course in "enemy recognition". You are talented and have great courage, but your enemy is not a legal system that failed you. It is Obama himself. But everyone who raises the "natural born definition" issue now is only helping Obama get re-elected.; 6/24/11, 10:29 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Holmes was an idealist who wanted to see happy men imposing eugenics theories to end lives for the socially inept."

No. He was the complete opposite. He thought judges should let the majority have the power it won.

"If my fellow citizens want to go to hell, I will help them," he wrote. "It's my job." Holmes had contempt for progressive economic legislation, which he viewed as sentimental and ineffective."

Eugenics was a progressive ideal. Holmes was just getting out of the way.; 6/24/11, 10:31 AM
G Joubert said...: Are we conflating Jr. with Sr.?; 6/24/11, 10:38 AM
Dose of Sanity said...: I wish I had some insight into what law school was like prior to the readily available resources of the internet. I can't imagine the time and effort involved in a search without Lexis or Westlaw. I can't help but feel its fundamentally different - and I'm not sure if even the professors or the rest of the law profession recognizes the implications.

In context of the post - as someone firmly on the threshold, it has never once felt cold to me.; 6/24/11, 10:43 AM
Mick said...: traditionalguy said...
"Mick...You need to take a course in "enemy recognition". You are talented and have great courage, but your enemy is not a legal system that failed you. It is Obama himself. But everyone who raises the "natural born definition" issue now is only helping Obama get re-elected."

The legal system is the enemy of We the People, not just me. Notice how NO ONE in the media is allowed to ask this question:

"If the REASON for the natural born Citizen clause was the prevention of foreign influence, then how is it possible that Obama, admittedly born British, is a natural born Citizen, eligible to be POTUS."

That question is Obama's Kryptonite. He is finished when it gets asked in the public airwaves. Obama is undoubtedly not eligible, and he has used the Birth Certificate conspiracy to his advantage, to obscure the real Dire Constitutional issue--- that he was born British, of a British subject father, and thus is not natural born. I educate thousands, and the blog I posted above details the Kryptonite that will be the downfall of Obama. The Federal Courts are corrupt and full of political cronyism, and the Universities are full of cowards who refuse to challenge Obama's eligibility lest they be called "racists" or "birthers", or jeapardize their cushy tenure. What kind of "law profs" refuse to speak about the eligibility of the President?; 6/24/11, 10:45 AM
Dose of Sanity said...: that he was born British, of a British subject father, and thus is not natural born

This premise is entirely wrong. I don't know who told that's how it works, but its not. If you think otherwise, you are welcome to provide any case law definding "natural born citizen" to me.

I'm a big Obama supporter. You are always welcome to challenge me on his policies, as long as you use facts and logic. Emotions and paranoia is a lose-lose, everytime.; 6/24/11, 10:53 AM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
that he was born British, of a British subject father, and thus is not natural born

This premise is entirely wrong. I don't know who told that's how it works, but its not. If you think otherwise, you are welcome to provide any case law definding "natural born citizen" to me.

I'm a big Obama supporter. You are always welcome to challenge me on his policies, as long as you use facts and logic. Emotions and paranoia is a lose-lose, everytime.

Ah another of Obama's Internet operatives. I posted the case above-- Minor v. Happersett, which sets the precedent of the definition of natural born Citizen. Where is your Case? "That's not how it works" is not a logical or factual answer (plus, you are wrong, it works oth ways, those born in Britain of US Citizens are considered Americans, as well as Brits).

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/us-supreme-court-precedent-states-that-obama-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/#comment-18410; 6/24/11, 11:06 AM
Anonymous said...: No. He was the complete opposite. He thought judges should let the majority have the power it won.

All due respect, if I am understanding you correctly (and I admit I may not be) you are both right and wrong. Holmes was a majoritarian, and he did indeed have contempt for progressive economic legislation. But he was most certainly a supporter of eugenics. It's right there in his opinion in Buck:

"It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind."

That is not merely a statement in support of the majority's theroetical right to impose sterilization (or any other desired policy) through the instrument of the state - it is a statement in support of the practice itself.; 6/24/11, 11:08 AM
traditionalguy said...: The Professor is right. Holmes was only an idealist to the extent that he wanted to keep the eugenics monsters happy as they exterminated normal life for the "socially inept". So Holmes would want today's Death Panelist's with plans go after the Trig Palin types to be happy in their work. Which draws attention to the happily pragmatic position that an abortion killing may be a wrong, but the government has no right to restrict it. In abortion cases the highest principles of our SCOTUS is to get the majority out of the way and permits the abortion industry to be happy in its work. In the Eugenics Law cases, the principle of Holmes was to let the majority do its happy work. Death we salute you!; 6/24/11, 11:21 AM
Carol_Herman said...: He went to Paris!

Six weeks, minimum, trips by sea. And, then overland hundreds of miles. Needed lots of horses to pull you along.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., had to adjust to a foreign language. And, always being a foreigner in a foreign land.

But Paris was ancient! Cathedrals that were started to be built back in the early 1300's.

Oh, and he became a physician.

You'd think if you were on a "threshold" to anyplace where you could faint, you'd be walking into a morgue.

Meanwhile, lots of french people jumped into the Seine. And, bodies were put on display when they were dragged out of the Seine. Sometimes with the netx that caught them downstream, still around them.

If the bodies weren't claimed within 3 days, they were sold to medical students for 10-cents-apiece.

Do cities make the man?

The above story about the senior Holmes, was a travel story from back in the 1830's. (David McCoullough is telling it.)

Plus, if you think the subject of the law is a dry subject, try math.; 6/24/11, 11:25 AM
Richard Dolan said...: If law's temple "seems very cold and cheerless about the threshold," imagine what OWH, Sr. would have said about today's med and b-schools. In comparison, the threshold of law's temples today aren't so bad. In his day, the temples were different, of course.; 6/24/11, 11:26 AM
Dose of Sanity said...: @ Mick

I'm at work, but I just popped the search term of "natural born citizen" into westlaw. There are 15 or so cases, 4 of which (all pre-1900) you've cited. I tried to find a good example of one.

59 S.Ct. 884 isn't bad. A woman born here to two swedish parents who was removed in her youth to sweden and lived there until she was 21. Upon return, the state department said she wasn't a citizen and refused to issue her a (second) U.S. passport. Eventually SCOTUS affirmed a decree stating she was a natural born citizen.

Give it up. Also, if you want more precedent, you may google "barack obama".; 6/24/11, 12:07 PM
MSG said...: Was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. literally attending law school, or was he merely studying law? There were very few actual law schools at the time.; 6/24/11, 12:34 PM
Carol_Herman said...: A riff on "eugenics."

Cats and dogs only began getting sterilized around the 1950's.

My mom told me that our male cat was, in fact, sterilized. When the vet came to our house. And, took out his testicles, sans any anesthetics.

Once this could by done with anesthetics, it became very popular, indeed. People who love their pets don't want their pets pregnant all of the time.

As to what was ... back before we had DNA analysis ... helping man to prevail ... was the fact that starving people on the streets ... had to be stopped from producing babies ... who'd die of starvation. But slowly.

Madness was another thing that was kept in the closet. (Not just male homosexuality.) Why was that?

Well, according to my mom, who was born in 1905, madness was an indicator that a woman's eggs could produce misfits.

It must have been something that was dealt with by observation.

Have we lost our abilities to observe? You can become much too addicted to scientific discoveries that aren't.

Observations, however, are like the truth. Hardly able to get out of bed in time to put "her" pants on ... to give chase to the lying liars.; 6/24/11, 12:40 PM
Carol_Herman said...: Our Founding Fathers fit in "natural born citizen," to block the ambitious Alexander Hamilton.

Politics being politics, and all.

Hamilton was born on a Caribbean Island.; 6/24/11, 12:42 PM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
@ Mick

"I'm at work, but I just popped the search term of "natural born citizen" into westlaw. There are 15 or so cases, 4 of which (all pre-1900) you've cited. I tried to find a good example of one.

59 S.Ct. 884 isn't bad. A woman born here to two swedish parents who was removed in her youth to sweden and lived there until she was 21. Upon return, the state department said she wasn't a citizen and refused to issue her a (second) U.S. passport. Eventually SCOTUS affirmed a decree stating she was a natural born citizen."

You're a little late to the party (and proving my point). That case is Perkins v. Elg. The court said Miss Elg WAS a natural born Citizen, precisely because her Swedish parents naturalized as US citizens before Miss Elg was born in NY--thus born in the US of 2 US Citizen parents= natural born Citizen.
The court said that the removal of Miss Elg to Sweden in her minority would not expunge her natural born Citizenship (even if her parents quit their US Citizenship), as long as she claimed her US natural born Citizenship at the age of majority. But thanks for proving my point. Try again ?(they just go from one failed example to the next).

wv: prowerse--not prowess; 6/24/11, 12:50 PM
Mick said...: Carol_Herman said...
"Our Founding Fathers fit in "natural born citizen," to block the ambitious Alexander Hamilton.

Politics being politics, and all.

Hamilton was born on a Caribbean Island."

WRONG again. Hamilton was a beneficiary of the "grandfather clause" ("or a Citizen at the time of the ratification of this Constitution."). There were no eligible (age 35 years, 14 year residence)natural born Citizens at the time of the ratification--they were born British subjects mostly (like Obama), so they allowed themselves and anyone that was a Citizen of the states at the time the Constitution was ratified to be eligible, even though they were not natural born Citizens. They trusted themselves, since they fought for Independence, but no one else after 1789.

Hamilton was a Citizen of the states in 1789, so he WAS eligible. As a matter of fact Hamilton wrote Federalist #68 describing the reason for the requirement as the prevention of foreign influence, after he was overruled. His proposed requirement was "Born a Citizen", but he was overruled in favor of natural born Citizen.

From Federalist #68:

"Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention."

The first natural born Citizen was Van Buren, born after the Declaration of Independence in NY to citizens of the State of NY.
Try again?; 6/24/11, 1:02 PM
Dose of Sanity said...: Miss Elg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 2, 1907. Her parents, who were natives of Sweden, emigrated to the United States sometime prior to 1906 and her father was naturalized here in that year.

The dangers of reading cases at work. I assumed it was just the father who naturalized.; 6/24/11, 1:17 PM
Dose of Sanity said...: Oh, and in response. Wong Kim Ark still controls.; 6/24/11, 1:29 PM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
"Miss Elg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 2, 1907. Her parents, who were natives of Sweden, emigrated to the United States sometime prior to 1906 and her father was naturalized here in that year.

The dangers of reading cases at work. I assumed it was just the father who naturalized."

The married spouse was automatically naturalized according to US naturalization law when the husband was naturalized (at the time). That law of automatic naturalization of the married spouse is forgotten by Obama apologists when they look at the parents of several Presidents, and mistakenly believe that the parents were not US Citizens.; 6/24/11, 1:30 PM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
"Oh, and in response. Wong Kim Ark still controls."

I realize that I a singing to a pig here, but no it doesn't. WKA verified that there was never a doubt who the class of natural born Citizens were, i.e those born in the US of US Citizen parents. WKA was concerned with who was a US Citizen in accordance with the 14th Amendment, another class, not an Article 2 natural born Citizen. AND WKA repeated the same definition verbatum that was in Minor:

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. "

It was determined by the court that children born of Unnaturalizable, domiciled Resident aliens (Wong's parents were subject to Chinese Exclusionary laws) were US Citizens, not that they were natural born Citizens. Minor v. Happersett is precedent because the court first had to determine that Minor was a US Citizen, and SPECIFICALLY used Article 2, not the 14th Amendment (they said they didn't need the 14A). Plus the case you provided, P v. E, defined natural born Citizen again the same way Minor (1874) and WKA (1898) did in 1939.; 6/24/11, 1:42 PM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
"Oh, and in response. Wong Kim Ark still controls."

Apparrently you didn't read this:

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/us-supreme-court-precedent-states-that-obama-is-not-eligible-to-be-president/#comment-18438; 6/24/11, 1:44 PM
Dose of Sanity said...: I did - it's just poor legal analysis. The case itself is pretty straightforward.; 6/24/11, 1:50 PM
Mick said...: Dose of Sanity said...
"I did - it's just poor legal analysis. The case itself is pretty straightforward."

It certainly is. Notably where it says:

"The Constitution does not, in words, say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. "

You provide nothing in the way of citation or legal analysis, but that is typical of those with an empty hand (and head).; 6/24/11, 2:50 PM
Mick said...: Kryptonite:

http://naturalborncitizen.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/minor-v-happersett-is-binding-precedent-as-to-the-constitutional-definition-of-a-natural-born-citizen/; 6/24/11, 4:54 PM