ABSTRACT
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s opinions in the civil liberties cases gave occasion to some of his most moving utterances. In the relation of state power to individual intellectual freedom, was a subject on which Plato, Milton, Mill, Bagehot and others had expended their best energies — a subject which of all problems in the realm of state theory is at once the most difficult and the most challenging. Holmes did not resolve the difficulties involved in the problem of state power and individual expression. Holmes was willing to let majorities have their way unless they struck at the deep principles of democratic procedure. Holmes wrote the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court. The Holmes-Brandeis view has seemed to liberal opinion a sound one in the context of the 1917 world. Justice Holmes wrote a dissent in which Justice Hughes joined, holding that the District Court should have proceeded to try the facts of the case.
