Cardozo, Benjamin N.

Description

Autograph ID: 6718
Condition: Very good
Description:  “(1870-1938) American lawyer and jurist, Associate Justice 1932-38. He was Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals 1914-32. He is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his philosophy and vivid prose style. Both Cardozo’s maternal and paternal grandparents were Western Sephardim of the Portuguese Jewish community, affiliated with Manhattan’s Congregation Shearith Israel; their families emigrated from London before the American Revolution. One of many cousins was the poet Emma Lazarus, and one of his tutors was writer Horatio Alger. Columbia Law School graduate 1891, elected to the NY Supreme Court 1913, joined NY Court of Appeals 1914 (1st Jew to serve on that court). One of his notable Court of Appeals decisions is Palsgraf v. Long Island Rail Road Co. (1928) on the development of the concept of “proximate cause” in tort laws (well known to all law students). In 1932, President Hoover appointed Cardozo to the Supreme Court to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and he was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate. On the Court he was part of the liberal bloc of justices (“the Three Musketeers”) with Brandeis and Stone. Hoover originally demurred: there were already 2 Justices from New York, and a Jew (Brandeis)on the Court; additionally Justice McReynolds was a notorious anti-Semite. However, Hoover bowed to pressure from many quarters to select Cardozo. In 1921, Cardozo gave the Storrs Lectures at Yale later published as “The Nature of the Judicial Process”, a book valuable to judges today. Shortly thereafter, Cardozo was a founder of the American Law Institute which crafted a Restatement of the Law of Torts, Contracts and other private law subjects. He wrote 3 other books that also became standards in the legal world. On the Supreme Court, his more prominent decisions include: Nixon v. Condon (1932; all white Texas Democratic Party unconstitutional); A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S. (1935; concurred in the invalidation of poultry regulations as outside the commerce clause power); Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937; unemployment compensation and social security were constitutional); and Palko v. Connecticut (1937; the due process clause incorporated those rights which were “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”).

Autograph sentiment (“Very truly yours,”) Signed on a 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 card.”

Type: Autograph Sentiment Signed