“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.” — from Jackson's Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal

Robert H. Jackson Books


Robert H. Jackson, although a prolific speech writer, wrote very few books. There are only six published volumes written by Jackson, two of which were published posthumously. Both That Man: An Insider's Portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt and The Supreme Court in the American System of Government came out after Jackson's death. Published in 2003, That Man, Jackson's partial biography of his one-time boss, President Roosevelt, was in unfinished manuscript form when it was given to John Q. Barrett, who turned it into book form. Visit the That Man webpage for more information about this extraordinary book.


Robert H. Jackson and President Roosevelt
shaking hands on the cover of That Man.

The Supreme Court in the American System of Government is a compilation of speeches that Jackson was scheduled to give at Harvard University at the time of his death. It was published in 1955.

Jackson's only full-length book was The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy: A Study of a Crisis in American Power Politics, published in 1941, while Jackson was finishing his year as Attorney General of the United States before being appointed to the Supreme Court. Struggle was Jackson's brief history of the Supreme Court and an account of its gradual increase in power, culminating in Franklin Roosevelt's attempt to expand the federal judiciary in order to decrease its negative influence on New Deal legislation.


Cover of Eugene C. Gerhart's,
Robert H. Jackson: Country Lawyer,
Supreme Court Justice, America's
Advocate, 2003.

Books about Robert H. Jackson are also few in number. There has only been one full-length biography of Jackson written, Eugene C. Gerhart's America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson. In 2003, the Robert H. Jackson Center had the book reprinted through William S. Hein & Co., Inc., along with Gerhart's short book on Jackson titled Lawyer's Judge. The two books are available in one volume from the Jackson Center, titled Robert H. Jackson: Country Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, America's Advocate.

Please visit the Jackson Center Bookstore by clicking on the "Bookstore" tab at left. Both That Man and Robert H. Jackson: Country Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice, America's Advocate, along with many other titles, are available for purchase directly from the Jackson Center Bookstore.