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David Holzman's avatar

Holmes was actually left for dead, having been shot through the neck, during Antietam, one of the most intense battles of the Civil War. The medics eventually found him and brought him back to the hospital where even he expected to die. He managed to scrawl out a note bearing his name and address in the event his body needed to be identified and shipped home.

It would be nice if, along with term limits, norms were set in stone as to when a president could appoint a justice and when appointments would have to wait for the subsequent president to take office.

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Michael Green's avatar

VERY interesting, and I think of myself, a 56-year-old history professor. My father died at 86, still totally with it and living independently. But when he was 84, he commented that his father had died at that age. When I turned 56, I thought, wait a minute, I'm 2/3 done. What do I want to do with the rest of my time? Thanks to some of the vagaries of my job, not necessary what I really want to do, but I still have opportunities.

As for the court, a couple of points. One is that the life appointment began in 1789, when lives were much shorter. Another is that Mr. Madison did not view the judiciary as co-equal, according to Jack Rakove, and no living historian knows more about Madison. Part of the issue is not lifetime appointments, but rather that those appointees have more power than they should or than the framers intended. But until and unless there is a change, Democrats had better realize the importance of the judiciary. It obviously didn't matter to anyone to the left who didn't vote for Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, or for that matter a Democratic Senate candidate.

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