Packing the Court: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court

by James Macgregor Burns

  125 [“felt necessities”] : Holmes, The Common Law, p. 1.

  125 [“Considerable latitude”] : Otis v. Parker, 187 U.S. 606 (1903), quoted at 608-9.

  126 [“determinations of what the law is”] : Isaac F. Marcosson, “Woodrow Wilson, Presidential Possibility” (interview), October 1911, in Wilson, Papers, Arthur S. Link, ed. (Princeton University Press, 1966-94), vol. 23, pp. 366-72, quoted at p. 370.

  126 [“way to purify”] : “An Address to the General Assembly of Maryland,” March 7, 1912, in ibid., vol. 24, pp. 227-36, quoted at p. 236.

  126 [“I see the female”] : quoted in Polenberg, p. 204.

  126 [McReynolds on “evil” Democratic platform] : David Burner, “James C. McReynolds,” in Friedman and Israel, vol. 3, pp. 2023-33, quoted at p. 2025.

  127 [Mason on Brandeis’s “laboratory”] : Mason, “Louis D. Brandeis,” in ibid., vol. 3, pp. 2043-59, quoted at p. 2044.

  127 [“not a fit person”] : quoted in Mason, Brandeis, p. 489.

  127 [“ judicial temperament”] : quoted in Paper, p. 217.

  127 [“dominant reasons”] : quoted in Mason, Brandeis, p. 491.

  128 [“into the wilderness”] : Henry Morgenthau, Sr., quoted in ibid., p. 503.

  128 [“Men are not necessarily made”] : ibid., p. 554.

  128 [“presumption of constitutionality”] : see O’Gorman & Young v. Hartford Fire Insurance, 282 U.S. 251 (1931), esp. 257-58.

  129 [Schenck] : 249 U.S. 47 (1919), quoted at 52.

  129 [“You must also remember”] : quoted in Baker, p. 247. Felix Frankfurter was the friend.

  129 [“poor and puny”] : 250 U.S. 616 (1919), quoted at 629, 630.

  130 [“best qualified man”] : Executive Committee of the American Bar Association, quoted in Mason, Taft, p. 69.

  130 [“White will not end”] : Taft to Gus V. Karger, letter of January 3, 1916, quoted in Pringle, vol. 2, p. 952.

  131 [“Four years president”] : Taft to Karger, letter of May 19, 1921, quoted in ibid., vol. 2, p. 958.

  131 [“noisy dissenter”] : quoted in Mason, Taft, p. 161.

  131 [“Taft’s modus operandi ”] : Abraham, p. 186.

  132 [“The good sought”] : Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U.S. 20 (1922), Taft’s opinion for the court quoted at 37.

  132 [“any law”] : Taft, “The Attacks on the Courts and Legal Procedure,” Kentucky Law Journal, vol. 5, no. 2 (October 1916), pp. 3-24, quoted at p. 8.

  132 [“overwhelming mass”] : Taft, The Presidency: Its Duties, Its Powers, Its Opportunities, and Its Limitations (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1916), p. 9.

  133 [Fuller and Taft vetoes of legislation] : Swindler, pp. 344-45 (Appendix D).

  133 [“hasty action”] : Taft, “Veto Message,” August 22, 1911, in Taft, Collected Works, David H. Burton et al., eds. (Ohio University Press, 2001-2004), vol. 4, pp. 149-58, quoted at p. 152.

  133 [“high duty”] : Bailey, quoted at 37.

  133 [“truculent labor leaders”] : quoted in “Taft Denounces the Clayton Act,” New York Times, May 27, 1915, p. 12 ; see also Taft, Justice and Freedom for Industry (National Association of Manufacturers, 1915).

  133 [“business of the butcher”] : Wolff Packing v. Court of Industrial Relations, 262 U.S. 522 (1923), Taft’s opinion for the court quoted at 537.

  134 [“no evidence”] : Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925), quoted at 656, 668, 669.

  134 [Whitney] : 274 U.S. 357 (1927), Sanford’s majority opinion quoted at 371; Brandeis’s dissent at 377.

  135 [Taft’s dissents] : The count was made by Taft’s successor, Chief Justice Hughes. See 285 U.S. (1931), at xxxiv.

  135 [“attitude of protest”] : Taft to Stone, letter of January 26, 1927, quoted in Mason, Stone, p. 257.

  136 [Brandeis’s advice to judges] : ibid., p. 118.

  136 [“colors the rest of the day”] : Taft to Helen Taft Manning, letter of January 8, 1928, quoted in Mason, Taft, p. 295.

  136 [“if a number of us die”] : Taft to Horace Taft, letter of December 8, 1929, quoted in Mason, Stone, p. 276.

  136 [“leviathan”] : Taft, The Anti-trust Act and the Supreme Court (1914), in Taft, Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 189.

  136 [“form of government”] : Taft, Popular Government (1913), in ibid., vol. 5, quoted at p. 116.

  136 [“prevent the Bolsheviki”] : Taft to Horace Taft, letter of December 1, 1929, quoted in Pringle, vol. 2, p. 967.

  137 [“era of regulation”] : Hughes, The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Foundation, Methods, and Achievements (Columbia University Press, 1928), p. 96.

  CHAPTER EIGHT -FDR’S BOLDEST GAMBLE

  Bruce Ackerman, We the People: Transformations (Belknap Press, 1998).

  Joseph Alsop and Turner Catledge, The 168 Days (Doubleday, Doran, 1938).

  Stephen R. Alton, “Loyal Lieutenant, Able Advocate: The Role of Robert H. Jackson in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Battle with the Supreme Court,” William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, vol. 5 (Summer 1997), pp. 527-618.

  Leonard Baker, Back to Back: The Duel Between FDR and the Supreme Court (Macmillan, 1967).

  James E. Bond, I Dissent: The Legacy of Chief Justice James Clark McReynolds (George Mason University Press, 1992).

  Irving Brant, Storm over the Constitution (Bobbs-Merrill, 1936).

  James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox, 1882-1940 (Harcourt, Brace, 1956).

  Gregory A. Caldeira, “Public Opinion and the U.S. Supreme Court: FDR’s Court-Packing Plan,” American Political Science Review, vol. 81, no. 4 (December 1987), pp. 1139-53.

  Frank V. Cantwell, “Public Opinion and the Legislative Process,” American Political Science Review, vol. 40, no. 5 (October 1946), pp. 924-35.

  John W. Chambers, “The Big Switch: Justice Roberts and the Minimum-Wage Cases,” Labor History, vol. 10, no. 1 (Winter 1969), pp. 44-73.

  Edward S. Corwin, Court over Constitution: A Study of Judicial Review as an Instrument of Popular Government (Princeton University Press, 1938).

  Barry Cushman, “The Secret Lives of the Four Horsemen,” Virginia Law Review, vol. 83, no. 3 (April 1997), pp. 559-645.

  Katherine B. Fite and Louis B. Rubinstein, “Curbing the Supreme Court: State Experiences and Federal Proposals,” Michigan Law Review, vol. 35, no. 5 (March 1937), pp. 762-87.

  Osmond K. Fraenkel, “What Can Be Done About the Constitution and the Supreme Court?,” Columbia Law Review, vol. 37, no. 2 (February 1937), pp. 212-26.

  Paul A. Freund, “Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 81, no. 1 (November 1967), pp. 4-43.

  Richard D. Friedman, “Switching Time and Other Thought Experiments: The Hughes Court and Constitutional Transformation,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 142, no. 6 (June 1994), pp. 1891-1984.

  Samuel Hendel, Charles Evans Hughes and the Supreme Court (Russell & Russell, 1968).

  M. Paul Holsinger, “Mr. Justice Van Devanter and the New Deal,” Historian, vol. 31, no. 1 (November 1968), pp. 57-63.

  Ronald F. Howell, “The Judicial Conservatives Three Decades Ago: Aristocratic Guardians of the Prerogatives of Property and the Judiciary,” Virginia Law Review, vol. 49, no. 8 (December 1963), pp. 1447-82.

  Charles Evans Hughes, Autobiographical Notes, David J. Danelski and Joseph S. Tulchin, eds. (Harvard University Press, 1973), esp. ch. 18.

  Dennis J. Hutchinson and David J. Garrow, The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox: A Year in the Life of a Supreme Court Clerk in FDR’s Washington (University of Chicago Press, 2002).

  Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary (Simon and Schuster, 1953-54), vols. 1-2.

  Peter Irons, The New Deal Lawyers (Princeton University Press, 1982).

  Peter Irons, A People’s History of the Supreme Court (Viking, 1999), chs. 23-25.

  Robert H. Jackson, The Struggle for Judicial Supremacy: A Study of a Crisis in American Power Politics (Alfred A. Knopf, 1941).

  David E. Kyvig, “The Road Not Taken: FDR, the S
upreme Court, and Constitutional Amendment,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 104, no. 3 (Autumn 1989), pp. 463-81.

  Joseph P. Lash, Dreamers and Dealers (Doubleday, 1988), ch. 21.

  Charles A. Leonard, A Search for a Judicial Philosophy: Mr. Justice Roberts and the Constitutional Revolution of 1937 (Kennikat Press, 1971).

  Max Lerner, “The Great Constitutional War,” Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 18, no. 4 (Autumn 1942), pp. 530-45.

  William E. Leuchtenburg, The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt (Oxford University Press, 1995).

  William E. Leuchtenburg, “When the People Spoke, What Did They Say?: The Election of 1936 and the Ackerman Thesis,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 108, no. 8 (June 1999), pp. 2077-2114.

  Joseph L. Lewinson, Limiting Judicial Review (Parker, Stone & Baird, 1937).

  Richard A. Maidment, The Judicial Response to the New Deal: The US Supreme Court and Economic Regulation, 1934-1936 (Manchester University Press, 1991).

  Alpheus T. Mason, Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law (Viking, 1956).

  Alpheus T. Mason, “Politics and the Supreme Court: President Roosevelt’s Proposal,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register, vol. 85, no. 7 (May 1937), pp. 659-77.

  Alpheus T. Mason, The Supreme Court: Vehicle of Revealed Truth or Power Group, 1930-1937 (Boston University Press, 1953).

  Marian C. McKenna, Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War: The Court-Packing Crisis of 1937 (Fordham University Press, 2002).

  Michael Nelson, “The President and the Court: Reinterpreting the Court-Packing Episode of 1937,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 103, no. 2 (Summer 1988), pp. 267-93.

  Michael E. Parrish, “The Hughes Court, the Great Depression, and the Historians,” Historian, vol. 40, no. 2 (February 1978), pp. 286-308.

  Michael E. Parrish, The Hughes Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy (ABC-CLIO, 2002).

  Joel Francis Paschal, Mr. Justice Sutherland: A Man Against the State (Princeton University Press, 1951).

  James T. Patterson, Congressional Conservatism and the New Deal: The Growth of the Conservative Coalition in Congress, 1933-1939 (University of Kentucky Press, 1967), esp. ch. 3.

  Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, The Nine Old Men (Doubleday, Doran, 1937).

  Barbara A. Perry, The Priestly Tribe: The Supreme Court’s Image in the American Mind (Praeger, 1999), esp. ch. 1.

  Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes (Macmillan, 1951), esp. vol. 2, chs. 69-71.

  Merlo J. Pusey, The Supreme Court Crisis (Macmillan, 1937).

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Politics of Upheaval, 1935 -1936 (Houghton Mifflin, 1960), esp. part 3.

  Torbjorn Sirevag, “Rooseveltian Ideas and the 1937 Court Fight: A Neglected Factor,” Historian, vol. 33, no. 4 (August 1971), pp. 578-95.

  William F. Swindler, Court and Constitution in the Twentieth Century: The New Legality, 1932-1968 (Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), ch. 1.

  139 [“action, and action now”] : “Inaugural Address,” March 4, 1933, in Roosevelt, Public Papers and Addresses, Samuel I. Rosenman, comp. (Random House, 1938-50), vol. 2, pp. 11-16, quoted at p. 12.

  139 [“bold, persistent”] : “Address at Oglethorpe University,” May 22, 1932, in ibid., vol. 1, pp. 639-47, quoted at p. 646.

  140 [“great cooperative movement”] : “Recommendation to the Congress to Enact the National Industrial Recovery Act to Put People to Work,” May 17, 1933, in ibid., vol. 2, pp. 202-4, quoted at p. 202.

  141 [“encroachments upon the sanctity”] : Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934), Sutherland’s dissent quoted at 448, 451, 453.

  141 [Black Monday cases] : Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555 (1935) (farm bankruptcy bill); Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., 295 U.S. 602 (1935) (FTC); Schechter, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), quoted at 542, 528, respectively.

  142 [“pathetic appeals”] : press conference, May 31, 1935, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 4, pp. 200-222, quoted at pp. 201, 212, 221, 222.

  142 [Butler] : 297 U.S. 1 (1936), quoted at 61.

  142 [Carter] : 298 U.S. 238 (1936), quoted at 291, 304, 308.

  143 [“ just as much a local activity”] : Charles I. Dawson, quoted in Schlesinger, p. 476.

  143 [“‘no-man’s-land’ ”] : press conference, June 2, 1936, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 5, pp. 191-92, quoted at p. 192.

  143 [“Clearly, it is running”] : entry of December 27, 1935, in Ickes, vol. 1, p. 495.

  144 [“intervene reasonably”] : “Memorandum for AAA File,” January 24, 1936, in Elliott Roosevelt, ed., F.D.R.: His Personal Letters (Duell, Sloane, and Pearce, 1947-50), vol. 3, pp. 548-49, quoted at p. 548.

  144 [“continuous constitutional convention”] : Congressional Record, 74th Congress, 2nd session, vol. 80, part 2, February 12, 1936, p. 1883.

  144 [“It takes twelve men”] : quoted in “House Bloc Weighs High Court Check,” New York Times, January 12, 1936, p. 23.

  144 [“something should be done”] : “Hoover Advocates Women’s Wage Law,” ibid., June 7, 1936, p. 1. The New York minimum wage law case was Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U.S. 587 (1936).

  144 [“lift the Dead Hand”] : quoted in George Creel, Rebel at Large (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1947), p. 291.

  144 [“no two people agree”] : Roosevelt to Charles C. Burlingham, letter of February 23, 1937, in Roosevelt, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, vol. 3, pp. 661-62, quoted at p. 661.

  145 [“The real difficulty”] : letter of January 29, 1936, in Cummings, Selected Papers, Carl B. Swisher, ed. (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1939), pp. 148-49, quoted at p. 148.

  145 [“private, social philosophy”] : “Memorandum for AAA file,” pp. 548-49.

  145 [Metropolitan Life study] : Schlesinger, p. 493.

  145 [“number of Justices”] : “A ‘Fireside Chat’ Discussing the Plan for Reorganization of the Judiciary,” March 9, 1937, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 6, pp. 122-35, quoted at p. 129.

  145 [FDR’s court-packing plan] : see ibid., vol. 6, pp. 51-66.

  145 [“enemies of peace”] : “Campaign Address at Madison Square Garden,” New York City, October 31, 1936, in ibid., vol. 5, pp. 566-73, quoted at p. 568.

  146 [“means must be found”] : January 6, 1937, in ibid., vol. 5, pp. 634-42, quoted at pp. 639-40.

  146 [“where I cash in”] : quoted in Burns, p. 294.

  147 [“fully abreast”] : quoted in Mason, Stone, p. 451.

  147 [“more judges to hear”] : quoted in Baker, p. 158.

  147 [“until I read about it”] : Stone to Irving Brant, letter of April 20, 1937, quoted in Mason, Stone, p. 453.

  147 [“shrewdly, Hughes chose”] : entry of March 26, 1937, in Ickes, vol. 2, p. 104.

  148 [“We have begun”] : March 4, 1937, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 6, pp. 113-21, quoted at p. 114.

  148 [“three horse team”] : “Fireside Chat,” March 9, 1937, in ibid., vol. 6, quoted at pp. 123, 126.

  148 [“slightest degree”] : Hughes, p. 311.

  149 [“fully conscious”] : quoted in Mason, Stone, p. 456fn.

  149 [Hughes’s West Coast Hotel opinion] : 300 U.S. 379 (1937), quoted at 391, 399.

  149 [Farm bankruptcy law decision] : Wright v. Vinton Branch, 300 U.S. 440 (1937).

  149 [Railroad labor law decision] : Virginian Railway v. System Federation, 300 U.S. 515 (1937).

  149 [Firearms tax decision] : Sonzinsky v. U.S., 300 U.S. 506 (1937).

  150 [“fundamental right”] : 301 U.S. 1 (1937), quoted at 33, 37, 41.

  150 [“poking his pencil”] : quoted in Irons, People’s History, p. 322.

  150 [“private owner is deprived”] : Jones & Laughlin, quoted at 103.

  150 [“chortling all morning”] : press conference, April 13, 1937, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 6, pp. 153-56, quoted at pp. 153, 154.

  151 [“weaken the prestige”] : entry of March 30, 1937, in Ickes, vol. 2, p. 107
.

  151 [Polls after White Monday] : see Cantwell, p. 92.

  151 [“decision of crucial constitutional issues”] : quoted in McKenna, p. 423.

  151 [“make this Government”] : quoted in Baker, p. 230.

  152 [“nomadic existence”] : Perry, pp. 8, 10.

  154 [“violated an express provision”] : “Fireside Chat,” March 9, 1937, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 6, quoted at p. 125.

  155 [“layman’s document”] : “Address on Constitution Day,” September 17, 1937, in Roosevelt, Public Papers, vol. 6, pp. 359-67, quoted at pp. 362, 363, 365, 364, respectively.

  CHAPTER NINE-“WILD HORSES”: THE ROOSEVELT COURT

  Henry J. Abraham, Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court, 3rd ed. (Oxford University Press, 1992), ch. 9.

  Francis A. Allen, “Chief Justice Vinson and the Theory of Constitutional Government,” Northwestern University Law Review, vol. 49, no. 3 (March-April 1954), pp. 3-25.

  David N. Atkinson, “From New Deal Liberal to Supreme Court Conservative: The Metamorphosis of Justice Sherman Minton,” Washington University Law Quarterly, vol. 1975 (1975), pp. 361-94.

  Leonard Baker, Brandeis and Frankfurter (Harper & Row, 1984).

  Howard Ball and Philip J. Cooper, “Fighting Justices: Hugo L. Black and William O. Douglas and Supreme Court Conflict,” American Journal of Legal History, vol. 38, no. 1 (January 1994), pp. 1-37.

  Howard Ball and Philip J. Cooper, Of Power and Right: Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and America’s Constitutional Revolution (Oxford University Press, 1992).

  Michal R. Belknap, Cold War Political Justice: The Smith Act, the Communist Party, and American Civil Liberties (Greenwood Press, 1977).

  Herman Belz, “Changing Conceptions of Constitutionalism in the Era of World War II and the Cold War,” Journal of American History, vol. 59, no. 3 (December 1972), pp. 640-69.

  Mary Frances Berry, Stability, Security, and Continuity: Mr. Justice Burton and Decision-Making in the Supreme Court, 1945 -1958 (Greenwood Press, 1978).