Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932, and as Acting Chief Justice of the United States JanuaryFebruary 1930. Noted for his long service, his concise and pithy opinions and his deference to the decisions of elected legislatures, he is one of the most widely cited United States Supreme Court justices in history, particularly for his clear and present danger opinion for a unanimous Court in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States, and is one of the most influential American common law judges, honored during his lifetime in Great Britain as well as the United States. Holmes retired from the Court at the age of 90 years, making him the oldest Justice in the Supreme Courts history. He also served as an Associate Justice and as Chief Justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and was Weld Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, of which he was an alumnus.

Holmes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of the prominent writer and physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and abolitionist Amelia Lee Jackson. Dr. Holmes was a leading figure in Boston intellectual and literary circles, Mrs. Holmes was connected to the leading families Henry James Sr., Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists were family friends. Known as Wendell in his youth, Holmes, Henry James Jr. and William James became lifelong friends. Holmes accordingly grew up in an atmosphere of intellectual achievement, and early formed the ambition to be a man of letters like Emerson. While still in Harvard College he wrote essays on philosophic themes, and asked Emerson to read his attack on Platos idealist philosophy. Emerson famously replied, If you strike at a king, you must kill him. He supported the Abolitionist movement that thrived in Boston society during the 1850s. At Harvard, he was a member of the Hasty Pudding and the Porcellian Club, both of which his father ha

Source: Wikipedia