Such was his November 2016 tribute to Antonin Scalia, given to the Federalist Society. He began with examples of the late Justice’s wit (beloved alike by Justice Thomas and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Respectively, they agreed with Scalia most of the time—and little of the time.):

In PGA Tour vs. Martin [Scalia] wrote: “I am sure that the framers of the U.S. Constitution aware of the 1457 edict of King James II of Scotland, prohibiting golf because it interfered with the practice of archery, expected that sooner or later the paths of golf and government, the law and the links, would once again cross, and that the judges of this August Court would some day have to wrestle with the age-old jurisprudential question for which their years of study in the law have so well prepared them: Is someone riding around a golf course from shot to shot really a golfer?”

And we will not soon forget Justice Scalia’s rebuke of legislative history in Chisholm vs. Roemer. There the Court reasoned that the absence of legislative history could be likened to the dog that didn’t bark. Justice Scalia responded: “Apart from the questionable wisdom of assuming that dogs will bark when something important is happening… In ascertaining the meaning of a statute, a court cannot in the manner of Sherlock Holmes pursue the theory of the dog that didn’t bark. We are here to apply the statute, not the legislative history… Statutes are the law, though sleeping dogs lie.”

The Heart of Thomas’s Message

For decades in cases large and small, Justice Thomas continued, “Justice Scalia delighted us with his with his command of the English language.” Then he got down to the more profound things he had come to say about his friend:

Much may be said about him, but little needs to be said for him…. I can hear his voice. “What do you think is the reason America is such a free country? If you think that what sets us apart is the Bill of Rights, you’re crazy…. The Bill of Rights for the former evil empire, the USSR, was much better than ours.” He would then make his point. “Without the structural constraints that the Constitution places on government power, the Bill of Rights is just words on paper.”

The separation of powers, Scalia wrote, “may prevent us from righting every wrong—but it does so to ensure that we do not lose liberty.” Thomas then quotes James Madison, from across the centuries:

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”  —Federalist 51

C-Span’s five-minute précis of Justice Thomas’s speech can be heard, and a rough transcript of his text, can be had by clicking here.

For those willing to devote a little more time to this learned man, click here. (Scroll to minute 20 for the speech proper.)

“The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo-American Liberties”

Winston S. Churchill, Liberty Day Meeting, Central Hall, Westminster, July 4, 1918. Excerpted from Robert Rhodes James, Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowker, 1974), III 2613-16.

I move that the following resolution be cabled from the meeting as a greeting to the President and people of the United States of America: This meeting of the Anglo-Saxon Fellowship assembled in London on the 4th of July, 1918, sends to the President and people of the United States their heartfelt greetings on the 142nd anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence. They rejoice that the love of liberty and justice on which the American nation was founded should in the present time of trial have united the whole English-speaking family in a brotherhood of arms.

We are met here to-day at Westminster to celebrate the national festival of the American people and the 142nd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. We are met here also as brothers-in-arms facing for a righteous cause grave injuries and perils and passing through times of exceptional anxiety and suffering. We therefore seek to draw from the past history of our race inspiration and comfort to cheer our hearts and fortify and purify our resolution and our comradeship.

A great harmony exists between the spirit and language of the Declaration of Independence and all we are fighting for now. A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and all that the British people have wished to stand for, and have in fact achieved at last both here at home and in the self-governing Dominions of the Crown.

The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document. It follows on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title-deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking people are founded. By it we lost an Empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire. By applying its principles and learning its lesson we have maintained our communion with the powerful Commonwealths our children have established beyond the seas.

Wherever men seek to frame politics or constitutions which safeguard the citizen, be he rich or poor, on the one hand from the shame of despotism, on the other from the miseries of anarchy, which combine personal freedom with respect for law and love of country, it is to the inspiration which originally sprang from the English soil and from the Anglo-Saxon mind that they will inevitably recur. We therefore join in perfect sincerity and simplicity with our American kith and kin in celebrating the auspicious and glorious anniversary of their nationhood.