Felix Frankfurter

“ The relation of the United States and the courts of the United States to the States and the courts of the States is a very delicate matter. It is too delicate to permit silence when a judgment of a State court is reversed in disregard of the duty of this Court to leave untouched an adjudication of a State unless that adjudication is based upon a claim of a federal right which the State has had an opportunity to meet and to recognize. ”

“ If such a federal claim was neither before the State court nor presented to this Court, this Court unwarrantably strays from its province in looking through the record to find some federal claim that might have been brought to the attention of the State court and, if so, brought, fronted, and that might have been, but was not, urged here. This is a court of review, not a tribunal unbounded by rules. We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing justice according to considerations of individual expediency. ”

“ The importance of freedom of speech of course cannot be measured by dollars and cents. A great principle may be at stake, as in the Case of the Ship Money, though the issue arise over the payment of a few shillings' tax. Were the Court to sustain the claim urged throughout these proceedings, in Illinois and here, namely, that a law is unconstitutional when it forbids Terminiello's harangue in the circumstances of its utterance, it would be immaterial that only $100 is involved. ”