To validate the revolutionary legislation of the New Deal, Franklin Rossevelt had to fight a ferocious battle against the opposition of the Supreme Court. Benefits like Social Security may now be seen as every American's birthright, but it took a Constitutional revolution to wrest such reform from the jaws of a laissez-fair entrenched Court. In The Supreme Court Reborn , William E. Leuchtenberg deftly portrays the events leading up to Roosevelt's showdown with the Supreme Court. The conservative "Four Horsemen" -- ...
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To validate the revolutionary legislation of the New Deal, Franklin Rossevelt had to fight a ferocious battle against the opposition of the Supreme Court. Benefits like Social Security may now be seen as every American's birthright, but it took a Constitutional revolution to wrest such reform from the jaws of a laissez-fair entrenched Court. In The Supreme Court Reborn , William E. Leuchtenberg deftly portrays the events leading up to Roosevelt's showdown with the Supreme Court. The conservative "Four Horsemen" -- Justices Butler, Van Devanter, Sutherland, and McReynolds -- struck down one regulatory law after another, outraging Roosevelt and much of the Depression-stricken nation. Although Roosevelt's persistence with the famous "Court-packing plan" (in which the president is allowed to add one new justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy) led to defeat, one by one, the Four Horsemen eventually left the bench, to be replaced by Roosevelt appointees. As a consequence of the Constituional revolution that began in 1937, not only was the New Deal upheld (as precedent after precedent was overturned), but the Court also began a dramatic expansion of civil liberties that would culminate in the Warren Court. This superbly crafted book sheds new light on the great Constitutional crisis of the century, illuminating the legal and political battles that created today's Supreme Court.
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