(January 27, 1872–August 18, 1961), was an American jurist who served on the New York District Court, 1909–24, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 2nd District, 1924–51. He wrote The Spirit of Liberty, 1952, and The Bill of Rights, 1958. So well respected were his decisions, that they were even referenced in U.S. Supreme Court cases. Judge Learned Hand explained:
The use of history is to tell us what we are; for at our birth we are nearly empty vessels and we become what our traditions pour into us.
We must needs be sounding boards for past themes, else we should have to repeat, each in his own experience, the successes and the failures of our forebears.
What we take to be our own choices are in fact imposed upon us from without, pressed into us by the stamps of our own inheritance.3168
In 1944, Judge Learned Hand spoke on the subject “The Spirit of Liberty” at an “I Am an American Day” program in New York’s Central Park:
What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith.
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right;
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women;
The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interest alongside its own without bias;
The spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded;
The spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, nearly two thousand years ago, taught mankind the lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten – that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.3169