Tag: Oliver Wendell Holmes

A civil war veteran and served as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice from 1902 to 1931. He was considered an expert on the common law. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the son of writer, educator and doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes, was born on March 8, 1841, in Boston, Massachusetts. Holmes Jr. fought on the Union side in the American Civil War for three years. In 1864, he began attending Harvard Law School and later taught as a professor. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Holmes to the U.S. Supreme Court. During his time on the court, he earned the nickname "the Great Dissenter" for how often he opposed his fellow justices in their opinions. Holmes objected the finding in Lochner v. New York (1905), which removed a 60-hour limit on bakers' workweek. Holmes wrote one of his most famous dissenting opinions in the case of Abrams v. the United States. The court upheld the convictions of several Russian-born political radicals under the Espionage Act. This time, Holmes thought that this case failed to meet the "clear and present danger" measure. Holmes retired in 1931, at the age of 91. He died on March 6, 1935, in Washington, D.C.