Charles Evans Hughes - Law Quotes

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In a number of cases dissenting opinions have in time become the law.

Charles Evans Hughes

How amazing it is that, in the midst of controversies on every conceivable subject, one should expect unanimity of opinion upon difficult legal questions!... The history of scholarship is a record of disagreements. And when we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty.

Charles Evans Hughes

[Dissents are] appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day.

Charles Evans Hughes

But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.

Charles Evans Hughes