Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, as well as for his philosophy and vivid prose style.

He wrote the Court's majority opinion in notable cases such as Nixon v. Condon (1932) and Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937).

Francis became a Presbyterian minister in New Haven, Connecticut, after education in Scotland, and was elected Secretary of State of South Carolina during the Reconstruction era.

He was implicated in a judicial corruption scandal sparked by the Erie Railway takeover wars and was forced to resign.

There is no evidence that Alger continued committing these crimes after the ones he was alleged of during his ministry, from which he was expelled in 1866 following an inquiry in which he failed to deny the boys' description of events.

[10] At age 15, Cardozo entered Columbia University,[7] where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa,[11] earning his BA in 1889 and his MA in 1890.

Cardozo wanted to enter a profession that could enable him to support himself and his siblings, but he also hoped to restore the family name, which had been sullied by his father’s actions as a judge.

[7][15] Interested in advancement and restoring the family name, Cardozo ran for a judgeship on the New York Supreme Court.

In January 1917, he was appointed by the governor to a regular seat on the Court of Appeals to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Samuel Seabury.

This is partly due to timing; rapid industrialization was forcing courts to look anew at old common law components to adapt to new settings.

[7] In 1921, Cardozo gave the Storrs Lectures at Yale University, which were later published as The Nature of the Judicial Process, a book that remains valuable to judges today.

[17][18][19][20] On February 15, 1932, President Herbert Hoover nominated Cardozo as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,[21] to succeed Oliver Wendell Holmes.

When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William E. Borah of Idaho, added his strong support for Cardozo, however, Hoover finally bowed to the pressure.

During his tenure in the Court, Cardozo wrote opinions that stressed the necessity for the tightest adherence to the Tenth Amendment.

from several colleges and universities, including: Columbia (1915); Yale (1921); New York (1922); Michigan (1923); Harvard (1927); St. John’s (1928); St. Lawrence (1932); Williams (1932); Princeton (1932); Pennsylvania (1932); Brown (1933); and Chicago (1933).

Hand stated that Cardozo "was wise because his spirt was uncontaminated, because he knew no violence, or hatred, or envy, or jealousy, or ill-will."

Hand found "it was this purity that chiefly made [Cardozo] the judge we so much revere; more than his learning, his acuteness, and his fabulous industry."

[37] Cardozo "confessed in 1937 that" after centuries in British North America, "his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions".