New York Trust Co. v. Eisner

In New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a federal estate tax and denied a claim for deduction of state estate taxes paid.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. wrote the opinion for the unanimous court, in which he famously declared: "a page of history is worth a volume of logic."

Justice Antonin Scalia is found of quoting that phrase, as he did in dissent in Lee v. Weisman:

Justice Holmes' aphorism that "a page of history is worth a volume of logic," New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349, 65 L. Ed. 963, 41 S. Ct. 506 (1921), applies with particular force to our Establishment Clause jurisprudence. As we have recognized, our interpretation of the Establishment Clause should "comport with what history reveals was the contemporaneous understanding of its guarantees." Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 673, 79 L. Ed. 2d 604, 104 S. Ct. 1355 (1984). "The line we must draw between the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding Fathers." School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 294, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844, 83 S. Ct. 1560 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring). "Historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied" to contemporaneous practices. Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 790, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1019, 103 S. Ct. 3330 (1983). Thus, "the existence from the beginning of the Nation's life of a practice, [while] not conclusive of its constitutionality ...[,] is a fact of considerable import in the interpretation" of the Establishment Clause. Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U.S. 664, 681, 25 L. Ed. 2d 697, 90 S. Ct. 1409 (1970) (Brennan, J., concurring).