Felix Frankfurter Biography Quotes 25 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna in 1882 and immigrated to the United States as a child, entering a world of crowded tenements and public schools on New York Citys Lower East Side. Gifted and ambitious, he moved quickly through the citys public classrooms and enrolled at the City College of New York, where rigorous study and debate prepared him for Harvard Law School. At Harvard he excelled, graduating at the top of his class in 1906 and serving on the Harvard Law Review. The intellectual ethos of the school, especially the emphasis on case analysis and institutional design, left a lasting imprint on his approach to law and government.

Early Career and First Public Service
After law school Frankfurter spent a brief period in private practice before joining the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, where he worked under Henry L. Stimson. When Stimson later became Secretary of War, Frankfurter moved to Washington to serve as a law officer in the War Department, gaining early experience in federal administration and the legal problems of a continental government. He returned to academia in 1914 to join the faculty of Harvard Law School, beginning a long tenure as a teacher of public law and a mentor to generations of students.

World War I and Zionist Advocacy
During World War I he took leave from Harvard to return to the War Department, this time under Secretary Newton D. Baker. He worked on labor and administrative issues arising from the nations unprecedented mobilization. In 1919 he assisted the American Zionist movement at the Paris Peace Conference, acting as a legal adviser in a circle that included his friend and ally Louis D. Brandeis. This experience widened his network and confirmed his belief that legal institutions must adapt to urgent political realities while preserving procedural fairness.

Harvard Professor and Progressive Public Voice
Back at Harvard in the 1920s, Frankfurter became one of the countrys most visible legal intellectuals. He wrote frequently for journals such as The New Republic and brought his students into contemporary policy debates. His critique of the Massachusetts handling of the Sacco and Vanzetti case, first in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article and then in a book, argued that the trial fell short of the basic requirements of justice. The episode made him a target for critics but also a moral touchstone for reformers. He formed close relationships with older judges and thinkers, notably Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Brandeis, and admired the craftsmanship and restraint of jurists such as Learned Hand.

Advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Architect of New Deal Talent
Frankfurter never ceased to be a teacher, and many of his students became prominent in the New Deal. As Franklin D. Roosevelt assembled the federal governments response to the Great Depression, Frankfurter recommended and groomed lawyers who would draft statutes and build agencies. James M. Landis helped shape securities regulation; Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin V. Cohen became central legislative architects; Alger Hiss worked in the executive branch and later the State Department. Frankfurter served as an informal counselor to Roosevelt, sending memoranda and names, and defending the idea that democratic institutions should be allowed to experiment without premature judicial interference. He also championed Learned Hand for the Supreme Court, a testament to his faith in modest judging.

Appointment to the Supreme Court
In 1939 Roosevelt nominated Frankfurter to the Supreme Court seat vacated by the retiring Brandeis. He joined a bench that included Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and later Robert H. Jackson, with Harlan F. Stone soon to become Chief Justice. From the outset Frankfurter brought a professorial style to conference discussions and opinions, insisting that constitutional adjudication required discipline, respect for the separation of powers, and a careful understanding of institutional roles.

Judicial Philosophy and Major Opinions
Frankfurters signature commitment was to judicial restraint. He argued that in a democracy the primary responsibility for social and economic policy rests with elected officials, and that courts should intervene only where the Constitution clearly compels it. This stance shaped opinions that were sometimes controversial. He wrote the Courts opinion in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), upholding compulsory flag salutes in public schools; the decision was repudiated three years later in West Virginia v. Barnette, in an opinion by Robert H. Jackson that many came to see as a high watermark of free speech. He concurred in Korematsu v. United States (1944), accepting the governments wartime judgment regarding the internment of Japanese Americans, a stance that later drew sharp criticism.

On criminal procedure, Frankfurter wrote the majority in Wolf v. Colorado (1949), declining at that time to impose the federal exclusionary rule on the states; the rule would be extended in Mapp v. Ohio in 1961. In Rochin v. California (1952) he invoked the Due Process Clause to bar evidence obtained through conduct that shocked the conscience, illustrating his belief that some constitutional limits were rooted in fundamental fairness rather than rigid formulas. He frequently clashed with Hugo Black and William O. Douglas over the scope of liberties protected against the states, with Black pressing for broad incorporation and Frankfurter favoring a more selective, historically grounded approach.

Desegregation, the Political Question Doctrine, and the Passive Virtues
During the school desegregation cases, Frankfurter worked behind the scenes with Chief Justice Earl Warren to secure unanimity in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and later supported a measured remedy that came to be known as all deliberate speed. His instinct for institutional prudence also appeared in his writings on justiciability. In Baker v. Carr (1962), he dissented from the Courts decision to enter the reapportionment controversy, warning against drawing the judiciary into what he called a political thicket. The sensibility he articulated later influenced his former clerk Alexander Bickel, who developed the idea of the passive virtues: the tools by which courts avoid premature or unwise constitutional rulings.

Chambers, Clerks, and Intellectual Influence
Frankfurters chambers became an extension of his classroom. He demanded exacting research and rewarded intellectual independence, producing a cohort of clerks and students who shaped mid-century public law. Among them were Alexander Bickel and Philip Elman, the latter later playing an important role in the Solicitor Generals office. Frankfurter collaborated with James M. Landis on The Business of the Supreme Court, a study that treated the Court as a working institution rather than a stage for grand pronouncements. He maintained warm friendships with judges like Learned Hand and continued to correspond with policy makers, though once on the bench he tried to separate those relationships from his judicial work.

Personal Life and Later Years
Frankfurters personal life was anchored by his marriage to Marion Denman Frankfurter, with whom he built a household that welcomed students, colleagues, and dignitaries. He was sociable, quick to praise talent, and equally quick to challenge colleagues and friends in debate. In 1962 he suffered a stroke, retired from the Court, and was succeeded by Arthur J. Goldberg. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1965.

Legacy
Felix Frankfurters career traced the arc of American public law from the Progressive Era through the New Deal to the rights revolution of the mid-twentieth century. He trained the legal corps that staffed the administrative state, advised Franklin D. Roosevelt during national crisis, and then spent more than two decades on the Supreme Court urging restraint, process, and respect for the limits of judicial power. His alliances and disagreements with Louis D. Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Robert H. Jackson, and Earl Warren placed him at the center of the Courts doctrinal battles. For admirers he was a principled steward of the constitutional order; for critics he too often deferred to official power at the cost of individual rights. Both views capture part of a complex figure whose influence persists in how lawyers think about courts, agencies, and the relationship between democratic choice and constitutional constraint.

Our collection contains 25 quotes who is written by Felix, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Wisdom - Justice - Leadership - Freedom.

Other people realated to Felix: Earl Warren (Judge), Walter Lippmann (Journalist), Harlan Stone (Lawyer), William J. Brennan, Jr. (Judge), Tom C. Clark (Politician), Alger Hiss (Public Servant), Arthur Joseph Goldberg (Statesman)