Justice Thomas: Americans don't sacrifice as much

LEXINGTON, Va. -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in a rare public speech told a crowd at a Virginia college that Americans today don't make the sacrifices of the generations before them.

The 60-year-old justice said Monday night that when he was growing up in the South he often heard about the value of self-sacrifice for the higher good.

A crowd of about 300 people gave Thomas a standing ovation at Washington and Lee University, a liberal arts school in the Shenandoah Valley.

The Georgia native took his seat on the court in 1991. Thomas and Justice Antonin Scalia are considered the core of the court's conservative 5-4 majority.