Hughes Court
Hughes Court | |
---|---|
→ Stone Court | |
February 24, 1930 – June 30, 1941 (11 years, 126 days) | |
Seat | Old Senate Chamber (1930–35) Supreme Court Building (1935–41) Washington, D.C. |
No. of positions | 9 |
Hughes Court decisions | |
The Hughes Court refers to the
Presiding over the country during the
Membership
The Hughes Court began in 1930, when Hughes was confirmed to replace William Howard Taft as Chief Justice. As president, Taft had appointed Hughes to the position of Associate Justice in 1910, and Hughes had remained on the Court until his resignation in 1916 to run for president.
Associate Justice Edward Terry Sanford died less than a month after Hughes's confirmation as Chief Justice, and was succeeded by Justice Owen Roberts in May 1930, after the Senate rejected President Herbert Hoover's first nominee, John J. Parker. With the confirmation of Roberts, the Hughes Court consisted of Hughes, Roberts, and seven veterans of the Taft Court: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Van Devanter, McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, Sutherland, Butler, and Harlan F. Stone. Holmes retired in 1932 and was succeeded by Benjamin N. Cardozo; like Roberts and Hughes, Cardozo was appointed by President Hoover.
Roosevelt made his first appointment to the court in 1937, replacing the retiring Van Devanter with
Timeline
Other branches
Presidents during this court included
United States Congresses.Rulings of the Court
The Hughes Court issued several notable rulings touching on many aspects of American life. Landmark cases of the Hughes Court include:[2]
- Near v. Minnesota (1931): In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Hughes, the court struck down a Minnesota law targeting "malicious" or "scandalous" newspapers. In so doing, the court rejected prior restraints on newspaper publications, ruling that the First Amendment generally does not allow for the censorship of the press.
- National Industrial Recovery Act. The law had given the president the power to establish "codes of fair competition" in the poultry industry, regulating prices and wages. The court ruled that Congress did not have the power to pass the law under the Commerce Clause, while at the same time holding that Congress had unconstitutionally delegatedits responsibilities to the president.
- United States v. Butler (1936): In a 6–3 decision written by Justice Roberts, the court struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which had been passed in order to regulate the production of certain farm products. The court held that the act was not a true tax but rather a regulation, and struck down the act as a violation of the Tenth Amendment.
- United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936): In a 7–1 decision written by Justice Sutherland, the Court rejected the appellant's argument that Congress had unconstitutionally delegated power to the president. The court held that the president has broad powers in regards to foreign affairs.
- West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937): In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Hughes, the court upheld minimum wage legislation passed by Washington state. The court held that freedom of contract is a qualified right rather than an absolute right, and thus must be balanced against the state's right to regulate some economic activities. The court also held that the minimum wage law did not violate procedural due process. The decision overturned Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), and has often been regarded as the end of the Lochner era, during which the Supreme Court struck down numerous economic regulations on the basis of the doctrine of freedom of contract.[3]
- National Labor Relations Actof 1935. The court held that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate some intrastate economic activities when those intrastate activities collectively have a strong impact on interstate commerce.
- United States v. Carolene Products Co. (1938): In a 6–1 decision written by Justice Stone, the court upheld the Filled Milk Act, which the appellant challenged as unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause and the Due Process Clause. The case is mostly remembered for Footnote 4, which laid the basis for strict scrutiny, the most exacting standard of judicial review.[4]
- Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins (1938): In a 5–2 decision written by Justice Brandeis, the court established the Erie doctrine, which requires federal courts sitting in diversity jurisdiction to use state substantive law.
- incorporates the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.
- child labor.
Judicial philosophy
The Hughes Court has been called a time of "constitutional revolution" in which the court turned away from the
References
- ^ JSTOR 1073597.
- ^ a b c "The Hughes Court, 1930-1941". The Supreme Court Historical Society. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ "West Coast Hotel v. Parrish (1937)". The Supreme Court. PBS. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
- ^ Caplan, Lincoln (13 September 2013). "Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Footnote Four". New Yorker. Retrieved 2 March 2016.
- ^ .
- ^ a b Cushman, 249-255
- ^ a b Leuchtenburg, William E. (May 2005). "When Franklin Roosevelt Clashed with the Supreme Court – and Lost". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
Further reading
Works centering on the Hughes Court
- Parrish, Michael E. (2002). The Hughes Court : Justices, Rulings, and Legacy. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781576071977.
- Ross, William G. (2007). The Chief Justiceship of Charles Evans Hughes, 1930-1941. Columbia, SC: ISBN 978-1570036798.
Works centering on Hughes Court justices
- Arkes, Hadley (1997). The Return of George Sutherland: Restoring a Jurisprudence of Natural Rights. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691016283.
- Newman, Roger K. (1994). Hugo Black: A Biography. Pantheon. ISBN 978-0679431800.
- Polenberg, Richard (1997). The World of Benjamin Cardozo: Personal Values and the Judicial Process. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674960510.
- Rosen, Jeffrey (2016). Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300158670.
- Simon, James F. (2012). FDR and Chief Justice Hughes: The President, the Supreme Court, and the Epic Battle Over the New Deal. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1416573289.
- Urofsky, Melvin (2012). Louis D. Brandeis: A Life. Schocken Books. ISBN 9780805211955.
Other relevant works
- Abraham, Henry Julian (2008). Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Bush II. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9780742558953.
- Cushman, Clare (2001). The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789–1995 (2nd ed.). (Supreme Court Historical Society, ISBN 1-56802-126-7.
- Friedman, Leon; Israel, Fred L., eds. (1995). The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. ISBN 0-7910-1377-4.
- Hall, Kermit L.; Ely, James W. Jr.; Grossman, Joel B., eds. (2005). The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195176612.
- Hall, Kermit L.; Ely, James W. Jr., eds. (2009). The Oxford Guide to United States Supreme Court Decisions (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195379396.
- Hall, Timothy L. (2001). Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438108179.
- Hoffer, Peter Charles; Hoffer, WilliamJames Hull; Hull, N. E. H. (2018). The Supreme Court: An Essential History (2nd ed.). University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0-7006-2681-6.
- Howard, John R. (1999). The Shifting Wind: The Supreme Court and Civil Rights from Reconstruction to Brown. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791440896.
- Irons, Peter (2006). A People's History of the Supreme Court: The Men and Women Whose Cases and Decisions Have Shaped Our Constitution (Revised ed.). Penguin. ISBN 9781101503133.
- Kennedy, David M. (1999). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195038347.
- Martin, Fenton S.; Goehlert, Robert U. (1990). The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography. Congressional Quarterly Books. ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
- McKenna, Marian C. (2002). Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War: The Court-packing Crisis of 1937. Fordham University Press. ISBN 978-0-8232-2154-7.
- Schwarz, Bernard (1995). A History of the Supreme Court. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195093872.
- Shesol, Jeff (2010). Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393064742.
- Tomlins, Christopher, ed. (2005). The United States Supreme Court: The Pursuit of Justice. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0618329694.
- Urofsky, Melvin I. (1994). The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. Garland Publishing. ISBN 0-8153-1176-1.