Conversations on the Enduring Legacy of the Great Charter: American Law & the Great Charter

from the Library of Congress in Washington DC you you good afternoon and welcome to the Library of Congress I apologize for our our late start but I promise you will be rewarded for your patience members of Congress distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen good afternoon my name is Robert Newland and I'm the assistant law librarian for legislative and external relations at the Law Library of Congress on behalf of the Library of Congress and James H Billington the librarian of Congress I welcome you here today for the symposium conversations on the enduring legacy of the Great Charter which complements the libraries exhibition Magna Carta views and mentor we are very fortunate to have luminaries in legal scholarship and the judiciary here to speak about the enduring legacy of Magna Carta the library's exhibition today's symposium and a law library of congress speaker series are all part of the library's participation in a series of global events commemorating Magna Carta the exhibition opened to the public last month and is the culmination of three years worth of work by divisions across the Library of Congress and in conjunction with our partners in England the symposium is meant to extend the educational reach of the exhibition and to share new ideas about the impact of Magna Carta on American legal history and contemporary life if you haven't already visited I hope you'll take the time to head upstairs to the second floor and view the exhibition after today's event today's event is being recorded and the resulting video will be available on the library's website free of charge as part of our ongoing commitment to lifelong learning so that we may pay full attention to our speakers we ask that you kindly mute all electronic devices to maximize our time with you today we will minimize introductions instead please refer to the printed program in your hands for the backgrounds of our stellar speakers you will be able to see the names at the end panelists and moderators on the screen behind me as they come to the stage we will first hear from Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer who will be interviewed by David Rubenstein about American law and Magna Carta both of these gentlemen are keen enthusiasts of Magna Carta and I know you will enjoy hearing from them I present our first speakers thank you Justice Breyer thank you very much for taking the time to do this we're going to talk about the Magna Carta but before we do so I'd like to talk about a few other things because you rarely get a chance to interview a Justice of the Supreme Court so since I rarely get this opportunity let me take advantage of it now and I say that when you grew up you grew up in California and went to Stanford then Harvard Law School but did you always intend to be a law professor and then want to be a judge how did that come about to be a judge but in 1/2 B go into law my father was the lawyer and you may not remember this you're not old enough but there was a time when you sort of tended to do what your parents said this is completely foreign to this entire audience such an idea but he was a lawyer and then as far as becoming a judge is concerned for any lawyer a federal judge like me has to strike I mean it really does and to be on the Supreme Court it has to strike twice in the same place so you and I worked on Capitol Hill at the same time I was working briefly for senator Birch Bayh in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution members and you had come down to work for Senator Kennedy was that unusual for a Harvard Law Professor where you were then teaching to come down and work on Capitol Hill and why did you decide to do it and how did you like that experience yes it was unusual it's odd it's still true to a degree in the Academy there is this tremendous respect for the executive branch if I had left Harvard and took a leave as I did I think to be a Deputy Assistant Secretary of you name the department oh well we understand that to work on Capitol Hill why would he do that now there was that attitude spoken or unspoken completely incorrect I loved working in the Senate it was fabulous and I think it still is as a staff person there you it's just I get on my bicycle right in first thing we did when I was chief counsel of the committee later at 79 80 after you would left you know when you left things begin to go downhill slightly but but the the ruining fish when I was in the White House it was going downhill yeah I know but we'd have always breakfast who Emery Sneden who is Thurmond staff person chief person on judiciary me I was working for Senator Kennedy who was the chairman then and I can't find burgers like the number one and a half all right and we would plan the day and the idea was where legislation seemed desirable to enough people you can color it red so this group could color it blue color it this way color it that way the object was to be able to present it so people of different political views could still vote for it and we planned it it worked Kennedy's learned a lot from him and he was wonderful to work for and as you know working for Birch Bayh it was fun it was interesting you want to accomplish something good and every minute though there are things that pop up and it's a wonderful place to well it was a unique thing because there was a sense that you were actually chose to work on legislation and pass legislation yes there was there was a very correct but at least try yes no you're working what happened in 1980 Jimmy Carter my boss lost massively to Ronald Reagan and in that lame-duck session that was then held President Carter had nominated you to be a judge on the First Circuit and but the Republicans were going to control the the Senate after Carter left and so they really could block anything how did you get to be confirmed in that lame duck because the Republicans knew they could have killed you in the next session if they just held it up for a while so how did that actually come about you got confirmed by an effective Republican Senate I think partly it's the way senator Kennedy wanted this committee run I mean he wanted it run so there would be some kind of record of accomplishment and that meant his favorite things to find berg and me if i had to pick the phrase three words that I heard the most from his lips work it out that was our job work it out the first day I got there he took me to the members of the committee and in particular I remember going in the Republicans like the Democrats he said to Alan Simpson great senator from Wyoming if you have any problems at the committee Steve's gonna be the chief counsel phone him and I felt that I was of course working for Senator Kennedy I was also working for the 17 members of the committee and that's how we ran it the other thing he said which I've kept in my mind is if you want to compromise is you work things out by compromise but a compromise is not I'm here you are there we'll see what we can give up to meet in the middle that's not compromising the compromise is we don't agree about something but we're trying to get together I listen to what you say listen and somewhere in this conversation you will say something I think is okay then I say what a good idea you have I'm fabulous I think we can work with that and then we work with this idea and then when if it goes through the other thing you said is don't worry so much about credit it's a weapon if in fact you pass it and it works they'll be plenty of credit to go around and if it goes nowhere who wants the credit so he'll push you in front not himself don't worry about it you will have the credit for your idea which enables us to compromise that was his view anyway and I think I work pretty much with that view for a couple of years and I think perhaps the Republicans on the committee or a very good group in my opinion as were the Democrats Birch Bayh fabulous I think they all got on pretty well now I'm told it wasn't ideal it wasn't paradise it wasn't everybody just throwing rose blossoms around and so forth but if they did get on pretty well and and I think it was that what I'd call a kind of collegial attitude that helped and I just had a drinks the other night with a group of staff Republicans and Democrats from the Senate Judiciary Committee now it's only judging on the basis of an hour but I would say things have not changed that much they're enjoying it maybe they've changed to some degree but you just see you you know you bring up certain things and what's your day like and what's actually happening during this day there's more there's more give-and-take and there's more with a friendship and so forth and then I think sometimes we understand reading the paper so you got on the first circuit Strom Thurmond the ranking Republican basically said he's a good man and we can work with him he's okay even though senator Kenney support him will support him so you got on the first circuit and had a very distinguished career but one of the things you were most famous for is as a judge designing the new building that the court had how did you actually feel you had the expertise to help design I personally did not design the building look we had an architect called Harry Cobb who was the partner of IM Pei all right so it was Pei Cobb and freed who designed the building what what what I did do and I with Doug Whitlock who is the district court judge on it is what I would call anyone can do it's called take the time and take the time meant that day a week probably for two years where we would work with GSA the General Services Administration and try to figure out how we're going to select the architect we hired we found the money to hire a consultant who is the secretary of the Pritzker Prize Committee and he was great and we went around saw people's buildings encouraged or went to make ourselves credible in the architectural world and we had great people applying and Harry did a terrific job and I'll tell you one thing we had to choose among five all right or six here's what he did we're off the subject we're not completely off it because what he did is he showed us a courthouse in Virginia picture a picture of a 17th century Virginia courthouse red brick steeple porch and he said look at that building the porch is there because it is in the square and it is a place for the public to meet the steeple is there because it signifies a public building that building works the judges there with his single courtroom he's part of the network of people who are in the government who will help that government building to work for the community and people will be part of it because it's part of the community now I'll show you 3rd Street Cambridge or Los Angeles what is that building it looks to me like a hospital or it looks like a office building or what is it I don't know the challenge is to take what's a public building for the public where it's our organization the judiciary were a high official pretty high a judge a federal judge meets face to face with the citizen who has the problem and they engage in a kind of interchange so that rich poor whoever that citizen is that judge will take the time personally to resolve his legal problem that's an unusual institution we want to express that in the building but we've got to express it in a building that will be the home to 18 courtrooms not 1 and how do you do it and when we heard that we thought that's our problem how do we get the public to see that this is part of their government that's not the division they and the government and Harry did a pretty good job of that so in Boston they do bring in the schoolchildren and they do bring in the public for a variety of uses and they do begin to edge to chip away at this enormous problem that I think we have which is how do we get those 18 year olds to understand this document that I carry around is not a document for me it is a document for them and we have a system we're in fact the people of America we'll decide what kind of government they want within this documents framework right and it's one that insists on a rule of law and now we're back to the Magna Carta and so now we're part of a world and you're part of one where we're trying to convince those high school students that they better understand this and they should understand its history and they should understand how that relates to democracy human rights etc rule of law because if they don't understand it they won't have it that's the connection between the court house the judiciary committee the judiciary itself and the document that you want to talk about which I'm delivering I'm gonna go through it I just before we get that one or two more questions that are always people ask I assume you when you got on the Supreme Court appointed by President Clinton when you've had your interview with him famously you had been injured unfortunately in a bicycle accident and then you kind of get out of the hospital to go to the interview or how did that wasn't that kind of awkward to go do with the interview when you were not in such good shape you had broken some bones and I don't know I can't remember okay all right so you get on the court you get on the Supreme Court and when you're on the court how was the court when you got to be a justice different than when you were a clerk you had clerked for Arthur Goldberg after you read from Harvard Law School and was it much different being a justice yes then much better I assume being a Justice than a clerk in some ways yes in some ways knowing so that you know go ahead so are the most significant cases since you've been on the court even on the court 20 years yeah would you say that Bush v Gore was the most significant in your tenure yes and do you think that that case would have been the one that decided the presidential election had the had it gone another way in other words suppose you hadn't made that decision or you hadn't taken up that case do you think the presidential action would have been different suppose that I don't actually I mean I if you can debate that but I'm if you if you read through the statutes that the way the president would have been selected and you can look at the later efforts to to count the votes that were cast in Florida which I think the press write in two different scenarios I think I'd come down on the side it might have been the same but it wouldn't have been it would have if it had been the the democratic processes that were working in a rather complicated way and not necessarily so perfectly but Mott was not my job my job was to decide that particular case on that case I was in a dissent I dissented in that case but I think the most important thing about the case the most important I the person who said this the person who said this was Harry Reid who I think would have thought that maybe my side was right and Harry Reid said the most remarkable thing about that case is something that's very very rarely remarked and that is despite the fact that the case was important and it was and despite the fact that it was not popular and it was not popular with least half the country maybe a few more than half but nonetheless it was not popular particularly and it was in my opinion wrong and I think his he I think he thinks so too the remarkable thing is there were not people killed there were not riots there were not paving stones thrown in people's heads in the street there were no guns people accepted it now when I say that to a student audience I usually add the following I know perfectly well that a good percentage view when I say that are sitting there thinking and too bad there were a few riots too bad there weren't a few and for those people I would like you to turn on the television set and I would like you to see how what happens in countries where people decide their major disagreements that way and we have decided to decide our major disagreements under a system of law and that is a remarkable thing that people actually follow that it has a long history and that history does begin 800 years ago with the document that I see robber twister here it's his committee and he's trying to say that that document in King John and those barons with over there hoofbeats or whatever it was that that is where that began well when 1215 and running me there was the famous Magna Carta but why do you think it's so famous in the sense that it was abrogated by King John and the Pope very shortly after it was agreed to so why did it become this big part of our legal history when it was actually never went into effect you know more about the history of the Magna Carta than do I you have helped preserve the Magna Carta with the archives because you helped the archives preserve that that's the 1294 or whatever 1200 797 what you have and you're asking a very good question because I wouldn't have known the distinction which you would have known between 1297 and 1215 but as you pointed out and others Lord Cooke Blackstone over a period of time pointed to that document habeas corpus developed afterwards so that people could take advantage of that document now what part of it is that the part they want to take advantage of and that's lasted the part that says you will not be imprisoned or fined or dis seized I think it taken your land taken away except in accordance with judgment of your peers or the rule of law that's it and they pointed that is the most basic thing and that's what the founders what Adams and others found so important and it is a symbol of that which it contains and indeed that's why our Constitution has no person shall be deprived of life liberty or property without due process of law twice once in 1787 and written again after the Civil War so they make certain it applies to everybody in the United States of America and that's what it such a simple idea but that's what people are all over the world today trying to see if they cannot embody in institutions but go back for a second to Bush v Gore why is it so tough to embody it in an institution why because we mostly it's the same question is with free speech what I'm talking to students I say you know you're for free speech everybody's for free speech they're for this free speech of the people who agree with them and when they hear somebody who really thinks something they disagree with they hope not that not that surely not that they I hate to tell you this but that isn't free speech and so what what Harry Reid is pointing out that the remarkable thing about the rule of law in the United States is on matters that important unpopular and maybe wrong because judges are human beings and can get things wrong and do they'll follow it they'll follow it and it's so easy to do it when you like it it's so easy to do it when you think it's really not going to affect me it's so easy to do it when you know okay great it's wonderful doesn't make any difference who cares either case but when you really think it's wrong and it's really going to affect you it's pretty hard to do and it's that tradition that's been built up and it's been built up over a long period of time and the Magna Carta that we recognize is not the document of 1215 nor the document that you have over in the archives of 1297 it is those documents and those words plus the fact that we have 800 years of practice in Britain and in the United States and a few other places were for some miracle it's built into a habit it's built into a habit into a custom into a way of behaving so that actually the people will do it when they don't like now there we are that is rule of law and it's that to which Blackstone and Cooke we're pointing and that's what we're appointing right now so when our country was being created the colonies were being put together the charters for the colonies were being drafted by people like Cooke they have to be helped in the Virginia Charter and in there they charters would say the Virginia Commonwealth will have the rights of Englishmen the people would have the rights of Englishmen I think that is where the sense came in the United States or the colonies that they should have the rights the Magna Carta because they had the rights of Englishmen Englishmen had the rights of Magna Carta but when you're deciding a Supreme Court case do you ever say to one of the other justices well let me go look it up in the Magna Carta or do you say well not really we just kind of build on the Magna Carta you actually have you ever written a opinion where you actually used the phrase Magna Carta I've said talked about the Magna Carta and and the opinion I think was one of the more important ones that we wrote was when we had four cases involving Guantanamo and in each of those cases we we had a plaintiff or petitioner probably who was a prisoner in Guantanamo and the respondent of the defendant was the president United States or the equivalent now you have a person like bin Laden's driver bin Laden's driver was not the most popular person in the United States against george w bush the president United States a very powerful individual in each of those four cases that was the person the prisoner who won the last case which I think was the more important most important was boom bdn and in boumedienne the question was could Congress suspend the writ of habeas corpus the writ of habeas corpus is the writ which is not from the Magna Carta but soon thereafter over the years and it means that if you get to a judge anything put on rock and I had a case where there was a rock thrown out the window of someone who is being detained the husband of a woman from the Dominican Republic was being detained by a customs officer in Puerto Rico and he got a rock out the window and it had a no take this to the judge I'm being detained illegally the judge says habeas corpus bring me the body who is the jailer and let that jailer explain himself as to what the reasons are to see if that person is being held under the law or is being held arbitrarily and he explained himself the judge that said then that that jailer was wrong release him no that writ of habeas corpus there was a question did it extend to Guantanamo and we first said the statute goes does extend to Guantanamo Congress passed a special law saying it doesn't and so the question was whether or not that writ extended allowing them to come into court to a prisoner in Guantanamo where Congress says it doesn't but there is a provision in the Constitution that says Congress may suspend the writ of habeas corpus in time for abelian or insurrection there was no rebellion there was no insurrection and what we said was Guantanamo is 90 miles away and Guantanamo if you look at the treaty every and we control it we control it well the the you may say sovereignty in Cuba that the Cubans can't get it back unless we decide not to use it as a coaling station anymore or what you've now called I think a naval base and so we said this is America and the writ does extend and in writing that Justice Kennedy wrote the opinion for the court wrote an opinion says let's trace the history of this thing and write there is a whole paragraph that the history begins with the Magna Carta and then fades into a period where it's going to be enforced and the enforcement comes through habeas corpus and this is not a minor thing we have a constitution that doesn't just guarantee democracy it guarantees democracy basic human rights a degree of equality it has separation of powers and so forth and it guarantees a rule of law with a document like that this is a critical part and therefore Congress cannot it cannot suspend this writ of habeas corpus the prisoners in Guantanamo have the right to come into court and claim and try to prove that they are being held trait the law was that it unanimous I can't remember their bow it was not unanimous like there was a majority that was for it and I was on that side so I can to think it was unanimous but that was let suppose like on Bush v Gore anything where you're in the minority of four to five I have it in the middle if you times maybe but you're in the minority you ever go to one of the Justin's say well you know I need a favor here could you just switch your vote a little bit maybe I could be on the majority then you ever do a little trading like that you know no they just don't know I say there there there there there are two unwritten rules that I think are important in the court they're not written anywhere what we have after a case we meet in the conference room we discuss it we're alone we go around the table and everyone says what he thinks of the case and the rule is nobody speaks twice until everyone spoken once excellent fabulous not written anywhere but that yet we have discussion after that but that's a very good system the second rule is the cases are independent of each other they aren't necessarily independent in so far as the principle of law as a relation one to the other but the the suggestion you do this here I'll do that there know doesn't have zero it's called tomorrow is another day I mean you and I were great allies on case one tremendous allies we thought we were so right and now we have case two and we're absolutely at odds how can somebody who thought so sensibly in the last case have lost his mind I mean that's that's a that's what it is that is what it is so now you were brought up okay if I want me to go on know how to do yes but the the the the way I get your question often in in a student audience is they'll say something that is sort of like what you said or something a little bit I say I know what you're actually thinking what you're actually thinking is aren't we Junior League politicians that's it there are two things three things people think one thing they think is that we we take cases just whatever we would like what fun this case would be that is not how the cases are chosen I'll spare you that then they think we just decide the cases where we like I just do whatever I like I say I never do what I like are you kidding it's like being married anything you say no yeah I don't just sit there dead but the third thing they think is that we were Junior League politicians I say no they say but actually you'd say that I said we look 50 percent of the cases are unanimous clothes 48 percent last year the five for the five fours were about 20 percent usually in fact there were ten five four cases last year out of about seventy three seventy two something in something that 70s and of those ten six were what you'd call the press view the usual suspects liberal quote conservative with etc six out of a yes so I'm making a little progress here with my audience but not that much because then they say however those really important ones and I say well is the ones that the press said grab you know that's like oh well you're not gonna go so I say okay let's look at those first of all often because the person has a sort of basic judicial philosophy and it leads in one way or another it isn't quite conservative liberal either but look the words Liberty in the 14th amendment and in the fifth amendment the words even the freedom of speech they don't quite explain themselves and we're taking cases really on the criteria pretty much that lower court judges have come to different conclusions on the same question of law so they're open questions there are very hard questions and they're right on the border lines very often and so look we're not going to be able to get the answer just by looking up some prior case we're not computers either say you're gets beating around the bush so you know I'm not I'm not I've been there 20 years I've not here I've not seen a decision like that and I could even explain Bush v Gore for you decided on the basis of what I call politics you and I worked in the Senate politics is are you a Democrat are you a Republican are you where are the votes who's going to be popular no 0 all right you're gonna say Bush v Gore I say I neither now on that one but I can bring you around on the we all know you I didn't mean politics like that I meant ideology Oh am i free enterprise Adam Smith and my Maoist troublemaker you mean like that yeah more like that well I say that's not right either but there is something that's right he's something that's right is this that that I grew up where I grew up you say San Francisco yeah I grew up in San Francisco I grew up in the 1950s I went to a public schools I and I have had a long time in the law I am the person I am and by the time you're in any profession for a few years in a while and you practice it and have life experience you'll have views what kind of use very basic philosophical views if you're a lawyer jurisprudence what is this document about how does it relate to people what's the country like that's who you are in your profession and you cannot jump out of your own skin and you shouldn't and therefore on that basis you will find differences and you will find coalescing around certain basic things but I don't think that's a terrible thing it's a big country we have three hundred and some-odd 20 million ten million 20 million people and they think a lot of different things and it is not such a terrible thing but on the Supreme Court of the United States over long periods of time you have people who think quite different basic views about how this document should be interpreted it's okay so you're obviously as you all know very well very articulate you know what you're talking about very well so why not let the American people see the justices when they're hearing cases when I televised it that's a good question which which you may or may not like the answer I haven't actually had to vote on that but the the and there are Supreme Court's that do let the television yet and there's a good argument for doing it why should the television be treated differently than the written press the written press is there during the Aurel argue you're less familiar with the arguments the other way because I think the press is less familiar with them they under no one understands an argument better than when it's in your in Torah but the reasons the things that go the other way or are several one is there's several that are of some weight and then some of its of real weight the one that's of some way is look we're a symbol it'll be in every place in the country in the criminal cases and the criminal cases the neighbors won't testify right if they think on television today all right that's that's a significant the oral argument is not the argument it's 5% of the argument and they won't really understand the process is mostly in writing or people relate to people good when you see a person on television you relate to that person not necessarily in the press as much but our job is not to decide the cases for these two people in the courtroom it is to concern consider and and write or explain a rule of law that is for 300 million people who aren't in the courtroom that will not come across on television unless they make a real effort and some do but not too many right but then you want the real weighty reason which I think which is I have an awful lot of friends in the press who say you think you won't be affected by the camera in that courtroom mm-hmm yeah the press they're already you think people will not behave differently mm-hmm you think you're used to it and you can just you exactly and say exactly what you want to do which I do by the way sometimes to my disadvantage but I do ask whatever it won't you think you will mm-hmm you wait and see you wait and see what happens the first time that you look at the television set and you see a total distortion of what you met making you look like a terrible idiot I mean some have claimed that the press for example keeps too pictures of each justice you decide the way they want it's not you decide the way they don't want its Torquemada you know how did he getting there the the doubt and you've seen enough of television to think maybe maybe so the true answer to that is I don't know but I do know that we are in this sense all a very conservative institution and being a very conservative institution with a small see we've taken over an institution that works well from the American public pretty well not perfectly and it's worked fairly well for a long time and I'm there as a trustee and there were with people before and people after and the one thing the nine of us have all been united on whoever they were for the last twenty years is we do not want to take an action that will hurt that institution it's not for us it's not for us and as long as there is that big question mark over what would happen institutionally people will hesitate now I have no doubt we will go others will come there will be people there who have grown up so much in a world of television and Internet and so forth that it'll be there and people will be used to it and you asked me about that issue during this period of time and I've tried to explain it as best I can I did a very good job of it and let me just say about the Magna Carta itself just add a note there are actually seventeen copies of the Magna Carta in existence fifteen are in British institutions one is in the Australian Parliament and one is at the National Archives and there are only four copies of the so called 1215 version there was a 1217 1225 and 1297 version and some others there only 17 left and the reason is it's 800 years it's hard to you know file things away and keep them and lots of times they were burned and other things but then the Library of Congress now has on display one of the for 1215 copies it's very rarely in the United States and I encourage everybody to take a look at it and see it if they can in part because even though it didn't go into effect and was abrogated by King John and ultimately the Pope it was the basis for the subsequent Magna Carta which did go into effect the 1290 71 did become the law of England is still in the books of England so without the 1215 we wouldn't have probably had the 1297 so if the Magna Carta had said that the courts of the United States should televise their proceedings you would do it then right didn't King John say that I thought he did I think III do absolutely agree with you you know there'd be a lot Plus in the television I wish people could you you would not have if you'd seen the the the way in which the cases are argued and people respond to I suspect though it's self-serving but I think it's true that people take these very seriously there's much more to be said usually for the opposite side of the case and you're prepared to think where I am when I go in and you suddenly hear it and people are wrestling with these these difficult problems and the the schoolchildren particularly so I'm focusing on across the country could see that that would be a plus there's no doubt it would be a plus and that's why people are divided on this issue they're uncertain and I'm saying there's too much uncertainty for a group of conservative people to run a risk but the institution but go back and one thing you where I certainly agree with you is look at the exhibition here of the Magna Carta it's fabulous partly because you see the document you can see it at the archives you can see it here partly because as you go through that exhibition it will force you to think about the time that is passed the people who have been involved a few of the ups and downs I mean think of this country I mean think of we lived in a period this country of slavery we had a terrible civil war we had 80 years of government backed racial segregation we've had all kinds of things of ups and downs and it's taken a very long time before those words in the Magna Carta have come to be accepted in the customs and habits of the people and it's something they won't be I tie with June my office I had about two years ago woman who is president of the Supreme Court of Ghana and she is trying to bring into reality in that country more but he but she believes is a more democratic system and protection for human rights and she said how do i why do people do what you say why do they do what the judges say and there's no answer to that question other than to go into a little history and to say look it's not just judges and it's not just lawyers even who can get this done the people who have to believe in it that's Harry Reid are the people who are not and believe it of the three hundred and eleven million people in this country 310 million are not judges and they're not lawyers they're the ones it's the people in the villages you have to convince but this is in their interest lawyers and judges might help you do that I can talk about it and they should but they're the ones that have to be convinced and go look at that history and go look at the ups and downs and that's what that exhibition would mean to make you do and and I think it's a really a great opportunity to see the documents and to see them exhibited with other things and and I'm glad to have the opportunity to be here in part that well as I could see that highest calling of mankind I think it's fair to say is public service and I want to thank you on behalf of my fellow citizens and your fellow citizens for the public service you've given to our country thank you very much on behalf of this institution which is our oldest federal cultural institution I want to thank you both for an extraordinary event it is really thrilling to see someone who's articulate in the private sector and also in public service and someone who's in public service and is also articulate with all of us to give you both extraordinary thanks for a wonderful and really instructive and even inspiring look at this even older 800 year old institution thank you very very much I'm sure I speak on behalf of you and the many others who will see this later as it is streamed on television Thank You Brad this has been a presentation of the Library of Congress visit us at loc.gov

Channel: Library of Congress

Views: 20,080

Rating: 4.6071429 out of 5

Keywords: Library of Congress, Magna Carta (Literature Subject), Supreme Court Of The United States (Court), Stephen Breyer (Judge)

Id: EPBR5Gxp1vg

Length: 43min 21sec (2601 seconds)

Published: Wed May 20 2015