Benjamin N. Cardozo | |
|---|---|
 Cardozoc. 1932 | |
| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
| In office March 14, 1932 – July 9, 1938[1] | |
| Nominated by | Herbert Hoover |
| Preceded by | Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. |
| Succeeded by | Felix Frankfurter |
| Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals | |
| In office January 1, 1927 – March 7, 1932 | |
| Preceded by | Frank Hiscock |
| Succeeded by | Cuthbert Pound |
| Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals | |
| In office January 15, 1917 – December 31, 1926 | |
| Preceded by | Samuel Seabury |
| Succeeded by | John F. O'Brien |
| Justice of theSupreme Court of New York for the First Judicial Division | |
| In office January 5, 1914 – January 15, 1917 (Sitting by designation in the Court of Appeals from February 2, 1914) | |
| Preceded by | Bartow S. Weeks |
| Succeeded by | Samuel H. Ordway |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (1870-05-24)May 24, 1870 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | July 9, 1938(1938-07-09) (aged 68) Port Chester, New York, U.S. |
| Party | Democratic |
| Parent |
|
| Education | Columbia University (AB,MA) |
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo (May 24, 1870 – July 9, 1938) was an American lawyer andjurist who served on theNew York Court of Appeals from 1914 to 1932 and as anAssociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1932 until his death in 1938. Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of Americancommon law in the 20th century, as well as for his philosophy and vivid prose style.
Born inNew York City, Cardozo passed the bar in 1891 after attendingColumbia Law School. He won an election to theNew York Supreme Court in 1913 but was appointed to theNew York Court of Appeals the following year. He won election as chief judge of that court in 1926. As chief judge, he wrote majority opinions in cases such asPalsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
In 1932, PresidentHerbert Hoover appointed Cardozo to theU.S. Supreme Court to succeedOliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Cardozo served on the Court until his death in 1938 and formed part of the liberal bloc of justices known as theThree Musketeers. He wrote the Court's majority opinion in notable cases such asNixon v. Condon (1932) andSteward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937).
Cardozo, the son of Rebecca Washington (née Nathan) andAlbert Jacob Cardozo,[2] was born in 1870 inNew York City. Both Cardozo's maternal grandparents, Sara Seixas and Isaac Mendes Seixas Nathan, and his paternal grandparents, Ellen Hart and Michael H. Cardozo, wereWestern Sephardim of thePortuguese-Jewish community, and affiliated withManhattan'sCongregation Shearith Israel. Cardozo had hisbar mitzvah at Shearith Israel in June of 1883.[3] Their ancestors had immigrated to the British colonies fromLondon, England, before theAmerican Revolution.
The family were descended from Jewish-originNew Christianconversos. They left theIberian Peninsula forHolland during theInquisition.[2] There they returned to the practice ofJudaism. Cardozo family tradition held that theirmarrano (New Christians who maintained crypto-Jewish practices in secrecy) ancestors were fromPortugal,[2] although Cardozo's ancestry has not been firmly traced to that country.[4] But "Cardozo" (archaic spelling ofCardoso), "Seixas", and "Mendes" are thePortuguese, rather than Spanish, spelling of those common Iberian surnames.
Benjamin Cardozo had a fraternal twin, his sister Emily. They had four other siblings, including an older sister Nell and older brother.
Benjamin was named for his uncle,Benjamin Nathan, a vice president of theNew York Stock Exchange, who was murdered in 1870. The case was never solved.[5] Among their many cousins, given their deep history in the US, was the poetEmma Lazarus. Other earlier relations includeFrancis Lewis Cardozo (1836–1903),Thomas Cardozo, andHenry Cardozo,free men of color ofCharleston, South Carolina. Francis became a Presbyterian minister inNew Haven, Connecticut, after education in Scotland, and was elected Secretary of State of South Carolina during the Reconstruction era. Later he worked as an educator in Washington, D.C., under a Republican administration.[6]
Albert Cardozo, Benjamin Cardozo's father, was a judge on theSupreme Court of New York (the state's general trial court) until 1868. He was implicated in a judicial corruption scandal sparked by theErie Railway takeover wars and was forced to resign. The scandal also led to the creation of theAssociation of the Bar of the City of New York. After leaving the court, the senior Cardozo practiced law for nearly two decades more until his death in 1885.
When Benjamin and Emily were young, their mother Rebecca died. The twins were raised during much of their childhood largely by their sister Nell, who was 11 years older. Benjamin remained devoted to her throughout his life.
One of Benjamin's tutors wasHoratio Alger.[7] When the Cardozos engaged Alger in 1883 to tutor Benjamin and his older sister Elizabeth, they were unaware that Alger had a history of likely molesting teen boys during his time as a minister inBrewster, Massachusetts, from 1864 to 1866. There is no evidence that Alger continued committing these crimes after the ones he was alleged of during his ministry, from which he was expelled in 1866 followingan inquiry in which he failed to deny the boys' description of events.[8][9] In reviewing Cardozo's life, Chief JudgeJudith S. Kaye stated Alger provided Cardozo with a superb education, and a love of poetry.[10]
At age 15, Cardozo enteredColumbia University,[7] where he was elected toPhi Beta Kappa,[11] earning his BA in 1889 and his MA in 1890.[12] He was admitted toColumbia Law School in 1889. Cardozo wanted to enter a profession that could enable him to support himself and his siblings, but he also hoped to restore the family name, which had been sullied by his father's actions as a judge. Cardozo left law school after two years without a law degree,[13][14] as only two years of law school was required to sit for the bar during this era in New York.
Cardozo passed the bar examination in 1891 and began practicing appellate law alongside his older brother.[7] Benjamin Cardozo practiced law in New York City until year-end 1913 with Simpson, Warren and Cardozo.[7][15]
Interested in advancement and restoring the family name, Cardozo ran for a judgeship on theNew York Supreme Court. In November 1913, Cardozo was elected by a large margin to a 14-year term on that court and took office on January 1, 1914.
In February 1914, Cardozo was designated to theNew York Court of Appeals under the Amendment of 1899.[16] He was reportedly the first Jewish person to serve on the Court of Appeals.
In January 1917, he was appointed by the governor to a regular seat on the Court of Appeals to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation ofSamuel Seabury. InNovember 1917, he was elected on theDemocratic andRepublican tickets to a 14-year term on the Court of Appeals.
In1926, he was elected, on both tickets again, to a 14-year term asChief Judge. He took office on January 1, 1927, and resigned on March 7, 1932 to accept his appointment to theUnited States Supreme Court.
His tenure was marked by a number of original rulings, intort andcontract law in particular. This is partly due to timing; rapid industrialization was forcing courts to look anew at old common law components to adapt to new settings.[7]
In 1921, Cardozo gave the Storrs Lectures atYale University, which were later published asThe Nature of the Judicial Process, a book that remains valuable to judges today.[7] Shortly thereafter, Cardozo became a member of the group that founded theAmerican Law Institute, which crafted aRestatement of the Law of Torts, Contracts, and a host of other private law subjects. He wrote three other books that also became standards in the legal world.[7]
While on the Court of Appeals, he criticized theexclusionary rule as developed by the federal courts, saying: "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered". He noted that many states had rejected the rule, but suggested that the adoption by the federal courts would affect the practice in the sovereign states.[17][18][19][20]
On February 15, 1932, PresidentHerbert Hoovernominated Cardozo as anassociate justice of the United States Supreme Court,[21] to succeedOliver Wendell Holmes.The New York Times said of Cardozo's appointment that "seldom, if ever, in the history of the Court has an appointment been so universally commended."[22] The Democrat Cardozo's appointment by a Republican president has been referred to as one of the few Supreme Court appointments in history that was not motivated by partisanship or politics, but strictly based on the nominee's contribution to law.[23]
He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 24, 1932,[21] and wassworn into office on March 14.[1] During a radio broadcast soon after Cardozo's confirmation,Clarence C. Dill, a Democratic senator from Washington, called Hoover's appointment of Cardozo "the finest act of his career as President."[24] The entire faculty of theUniversity of Chicago Law School had urged Hoover to nominate Cardozo, as did the deans of the law schools at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. JusticeHarlan Fiske Stone strongly urged Hoover to name Cardozo, even offering to resign to make room for him if Hoover had his heart set on someone else (Stone had suggested toCalvin Coolidge that he should nominate Cardozo in 1925 before Stone).[25] Hoover originally demurred; he was concerned that there were already two justices from New York, and a Jew on the court. JusticeJames McReynolds was a notorious anti-Semite (and once on the Court, McReynolds directed antagonistic antisemitic behavior toward Cardozo, something he had been sheltered from in his prior life[26][27]). When the chairman of theSenate Foreign Relations Committee,William E. Borah of Idaho, added his strong support for Cardozo, however, Hoover finally bowed to the pressure.
Cardozo was a member of theThree Musketeers, along with Brandeis and Stone, who were considered to be the liberal faction of the Supreme Court. During his tenure in the Court, Cardozo wrote opinions that stressed the necessity for the tightest adherence to theTenth Amendment.
Cardozo received thehonorary degree ofLL.D. from several colleges and universities, including:Columbia (1915);Yale (1921);New York (1922);Michigan (1923);Harvard (1927);St. John's (1928);St. Lawrence (1932);Williams (1932);Princeton (1932);Pennsylvania (1932);Brown (1933); andChicago (1933).[28]
As an adult, Cardozo no longer practiced Judaism (he identified as an agnostic), but he was proud of his Jewish heritage.[29]
Of the six children born to Albert and Rebecca Cardozo, only his twin sister Emily married. She and her husband did not have any children.
Constitutional law scholarJeffrey Rosen noted in aNew York Times book review ofRichard Polenberg's book on Cardozo:
Polenberg describes Cardozo's lifelong devotion to his older sister Nell, with whom he lived in New York until her death in 1929. When asked why he had never married, Cardozo replied, quietly and sadly, "I never could give Nellie the second place in my life".
In late 1937, Cardozo had aheart attack, and in early 1938, he suffered astroke. He died on July 9, 1938, at the age of 68. He was buried inBeth Olam Cemetery in Queens.[30][31]
In 1939, renowned JudgeLearned Handeulogized Cardozo, describing him as able to "weigh the conflicting factors of his problem without always finding himself on one scale or the other" and noting that "his gentle nature had in it no acquisitiveness" and that he was able to get outside himself and "from this self-effacement came a power greater than the power of him who ruleth a city." Hand stated that Cardozo "was wise because his spirt was uncontaminated, because he knew no violence, or hatred, or envy, or jealousy, or ill-will." Hand found "it was this purity that chiefly made [Cardozo] the judge we so much revere; more than his learning, his acuteness, and his fabulous industry." He asked that people grasp the rare good fortune that a person with Cardozo's qualities existed, pause to "take count of our own coarser selves," and take in the lesson Cardozo taught through example, "a lesson quite at variance with most that we practice, and much that we profess."[32]
Cardozo's evaluation of himself showed the same flair as his legal opinions:
In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity—please observe, a plodding mediocrity—for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.[33]
Cardozo was the second Jewish justice to be appointed to the Supreme Court. The first wasLouis Brandeis, whose family wasAshkenazi.
Cardozo was born into theSpanish and Portuguese Jewish community, which had traditions distinct from the Ashkenazi. Since the appointment of JusticeSonia Sotomayor in the 21st century, some commentators have suggested that Cardozo should be considered the "first Hispanic justice".[34][35][36]
In response to this controversy, Cardozo biographer Andrew Kaufman questioned the usage of the term "Hispanic" in Justice Cardozo's lifetime: "Well, I think he regarded himself as aSephardic Jew whose ancestors came from theIberian Peninsula".[37] Cardozo "confessed in 1937 that" after centuries in British North America, "his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions".[38] His ancestors had lived in England, the British colonies, and the United States since the 17th century.
Some Latino advocacy groups, such as theNational Association of Latino Elected Officials and theHispanic National Bar Association, considerSonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice, as in their view she was raised in Hispanic culture.[34][37]
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Supreme Court Historical Society atInternet Archive.| External videos | |
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 Presentation by Andrew L. Kaufman onCardozo, June 14, 1998,C-SPAN |
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Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Data from Wikidata
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals 1927–1932 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1932–1938 | Succeeded by |
