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Robert H. Jackson Biography |
Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 - October 9, 1954) was United States Attorney General (1940 - 1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941 - 1954). He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.
Born in Spring Creek Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania, Jackson studied law at Albany Law School in Albany, New York, passing his bar exam in 1913 without having attained a degree, and afterwards setting up practice in Jamestown.
Jackson became active in the federal government during the FDR administration, serving as general counsel of the Internal Revenue Service beginning in 1934. He went on to become an Assistant Attorney General from 1936 to 1938, during which time he was noted for successfully prosecuting several antitrust cases.
After a term as United States Solicitor General (1938-39) Jackson was appointed Attorney General by Roosevelt in 1940, replacing Frank Murphy. When Harlan Fiske Stone replaced the retiring Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice in 1941, Roosevelt appointed Jackson to the resulting vacant Associate's seat.
Jackson was granted a leave of absence from the Court in 1945. He helped draft the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which created the legal basis for the Nuremberg trials. Afterward, he traveled to Germany to act as the United States' chief prosecutor at those trials. Jackson pursued his prosecutorial role with a great deal of vigor (for instance, referring in arguments to Hermann Göring as being "half militarist, half gangster"), but resigned his position as prosecutor after the first trial and returned to the U.S. in the midst of controversy.
Jackson had informally been promised the Chief Justiceship by Roosevelt; however, the seat came open while Jackson was in Germany, and FDR was no longer alive. President Truman was faced with two factions, one recommending Jackson for the seat, the other advocating Hugo Black. In an attempt to avoid controversy, Truman appointed Fred M. Vinson. Jackson blamed machinations by Black for his being passed over for the seat, and began a long feud with Black, which was heavily covered in the press and cast the New Deal Court in a negative light.
Jackson died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 62 and was interred in Frewsburg, New York.
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"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy." |
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