Summer 2009Vol. 4, No. 2This article is from TOS Vol. 4, No. 2. The full contents of the issue are listed here. Justice Holmes and the Empty Constitution Thomas A. BowdenOn April 17, 1905, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. issued his dissenting opinion in the case of Lochner v. New York.1 At a mere 617 words, the dissent was dwarfed by the 9,000 words it took for the Supreme Court’s eight other Justices to present their own opinions. But none of this bothered Holmes, who prided himself on writing concisely. “The vulgar hardly will believe an opinion important unless...