The Taft Court refers to the
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
from 1921 to 1930, when
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...
served as
Chief Justice of the United States. Taft succeeded
Edward Douglass White
Edward Douglass White Jr. (November 3, 1844 – May 19, 1921) was an American politician and jurist from Louisiana. White was a U.S. Supreme Court justice for 27 years, first as an associate justice from 1894 to 1910, then as the ninth chief ju ...
as Chief Justice after the latter's death, and Taft served as Chief Justice until his resignation, at which point
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician and jurist who served as the 11th Chief Justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the ...
was nominated and confirmed as Taft's replacement. Taft was also the nation's 27th
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
(1909–13); he is the only person to serve as both President of the United States and Chief Justice.
The Taft Court continued the ''
Lochner era
The ''Lochner'' era is a period in American legal history from 1897 to 1937 in which the Supreme Court of the United States is said to have made it a common practice "to strike down economic regulations adopted by a State based on the Court's o ...
'' and largely reflected the conservatism of the 1920s.
The Taft Court is also notable for being the first court able to exert some control over its own docket, as the
Judiciary Act of 1925
The Judiciary Act of 1925 (43 Stat. 936), also known as the Judge's Bill or Certiorari Act, was an act of the United States Congress that sought to reduce the workload of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Background
Although the Judiciary Ac ...
instituted the requirement that almost all cases receive a writ of
certiorari
In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...
from four justices before appearing before the Supreme Court.
Membership
The Taft Court began in 1921 when President
Warren Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. ...
appointed former President William Howard Taft to replace Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, who Taft himself had made Chief Justice in 1910. The Taft Court began with Taft and eight members of the White Court:
Joseph McKenna
Joseph McKenna (August 10, 1843 – November 21, 1926) was an American politician who served in all three branches of the U.S. federal government, as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, as U.S. Attorney General and as an Associate J ...
,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist and legal scholar who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932.Holmes was Acting Chief Justice of the Un ...
,
William R. Day,
Willis Van Devanter
Willis Van Devanter (April 17, 1859 – February 8, 1941) was an American lawyer who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1911 to 1937. He was a staunch conservative and was regarded as a part of the Four ...
,
Mahlon Pitney
Mahlon R. Pitney IV (February 5, 1858 – December 9, 1924) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms from 1895 to 1899. He later served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Suprem ...
,
James Clark McReynolds
James Clark McReynolds (February 3, 1862 – August 24, 1946) was an American lawyer and judge from Tennessee who served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Unite ...
,
Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939.
Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept ...
, and
John Hessin Clarke
John Hessin Clarke (September 18, 1857 – March 22, 1945) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1916 to 1922.
Early life
Born in New Lisbon, Ohio, Clarke was the third and y ...
. In 1922 and 1923, Harding appointed
George Sutherland
George Alexander Sutherland (March 25, 1862July 18, 1942) was an English-born American jurist and politician. He served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1922 and 1938. As a member of the Republican Party, he also repre ...
,
Pierce Butler Pierce or Piers Butler may refer to:
*Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond (c. 1467 – 26 August 1539), Anglo-Irish nobleman in the Peerage of Ireland
*Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye (1652–1740), Anglo-Irish nobleman in the Peerage of Ireland
*Pi ...
, and
Edward Terry Sanford
Edward Terry Sanford (July 23, 1865 – March 8, 1930) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1923 until his death in 1930. Prior to his nomination to the high court, Sanford served as a ...
to replace Day, Pitney, and Clarke. In 1925, President
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
appointed
Harlan F. Stone
Harlan Fiske Stone (October 11, 1872 – April 22, 1946) was an American attorney and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1925 to 1941 and then as the 12th chief justice of the United States from 1941 un ...
to replace the retiring McKenna.
Timeline
1925 photo
Other branches
Presidents during this court included
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
,
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
, and
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...
. Congresses during this court included
67th through the
71st United States Congresses.
Selected Rulings of the Court
*''
Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon'' (1922): In a decision written by Justice Holmes, the court established the doctrine of
regulatory taking
In United States constitutional law, a regulatory taking occurs when governmental regulations limit the use of private property to such a degree that the landowner is effectively deprived of all economically reasonable use or value of their prope ...
under the
Takings Clause
The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution addresses criminal procedure and other aspects of the Constitution. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amend ...
.
*''
Federal Baseball Club v. National League
''Federal Baseball Club v. National League'', 259 U.S. 200 (1922), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act did not apply to Major League Baseball.
Background
After the Federal League folded in 1915, most of ...
'' (1922): In a unanimous decision written by Justice Holmes, the court held that
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
operations did not qualify as
interstate commerce
The Commerce Clause describes an enumerated power listed in the United States Constitution ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among ...
and hence that the league was exempt from the
Sherman Antitrust Act
The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author.
Th ...
. The suit had been brought by the owner of the
Baltimore Terrapins
The Baltimore Terrapins were one of the most successful teams in the short-lived Federal League of professional baseball from to , but their brief existence led to litigation that led to an important legal precedent in baseball. The team played i ...
of the
Federal League
The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...
, the last major league to compete with Major League Baseball.
*''
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.
''Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.'', 259 U.S. 20 (1922), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law unconstitutional as an improper attempt by Congress to penalize employers using child labor. Th ...
'' (1922): In an 8–1 decision delivered by Justice Taft, the court struck down the 1919 Child Labor Tax Law, which Congress had passed to tax companies using
child labor
Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such e ...
. The court held that the tax was not a true tax, but rather a regulation on businesses using child labor, and thus a violation of the
Tenth Amendment which the court held was charged with such regulation.
*''
Moore v. Dempsey
''Moore et al. v. Dempsey'', 261 U.S. 86 (1923), was a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled 6–2 that the defendants' mob-dominated trials deprived them of due process guaranteed by the Due ...
'' (1923): In a 6-2 decision written by Justice Holmes, the court held that mob interference in a criminal trial violates due process, and that federal courts could protect against due process violations in trials held by state courts. It was the first Supreme Court case in the 20th century that protected the civil rights of
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
.
*''
Adkins v. Children's Hospital
''Adkins v. Children's Hospital'', 261 U.S. 525 (1923), is a United States Supreme Court opinion that federal minimum wage legislation for women was an unconstitutional infringement of liberty of contract, as protected by the due process clause ...
'' (1923): In a 5-3 decision written by Justice Sutherland, the court struck down a national minimum wage law for women. The court held that minimum wage laws violate
freedom of contract
Freedom of contract is the process in which individuals and groups form contracts without government restrictions. This is opposed to government regulations such as minimum-wage laws, competition laws, economic sanctions, restrictions on pri ...
, a doctrine established in ''
Lochner v. New York
''Lochner v. New York'', 198 U.S. 45 (1905), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that a New York state law setting maximum working hours for bakers violated the bakers' right to freedom of contract under t ...
'' (1905). ''Adkins'' was overruled by ''
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
''West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish'', 300 U.S. 379 (1937), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of state minimum wage legislation. The court's decision overturned an earlier holding in ''Adkins v. Child ...
'' (1937).
*''
Pierce v. Society of Sisters
''Pierce v. Society of Sisters'', 268 U.S. 510 (1925), was an early 20th-century United States Supreme Court decision striking down an Oregon statute that required all children to attend public school. The decision significantly expanded coverage ...
'' (1925): In a unanimous decision written by Justice McReynolds, the court struck down the
Oregon Compulsory Education Act The Compulsory Education Act or Oregon School Law was a 1922 law in the U.S. state of Oregon that required school age children to attend only public schools. The United States Supreme Court later struck down the law as unconstitutional.
Background ...
, which had required children to attend only public schools; the law included several exceptions, and was mostly targeted at
parochial school
A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The ...
s. The court held that the law violated due process.
*''
Gitlow v. New York
''Gitlow v. New York'', 268 U.S. 652 (1925), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court holding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United S ...
'' (1925): In a 7–2 decision written by Justice Sanford, the court held that the
Due Process Clause
In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...
of the
Fourteenth Amendment extended
freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
and
freedom of the press
Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
protections of the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
to the states. However, the court upheld the conviction of the defendant, socialist
Benjamin Gitlow
Benjamin Gitlow (December 22, 1891 – July 19, 1965) was a prominent American socialist politician of the early 20th century and a founding member of the Communist Party USA. During the end of the 1930s, Gitlow turned to conservatism and wrote t ...
, on the basis that Gitlow's speech represented a danger to the country under the
bad tendency
In U.S. law, the bad tendency principle was a test that permitted restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal activity. The principle, formulated in '' Patter ...
test. This was the first of several cases that
incorporated the
Bill of Rights
A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...
against the states.
*''
Carroll v. United States
''Carroll v. United States'', 267 U.S. 132 (1925), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that upheld the warrantless searches of an automobile, which is known as the automobile exception. The case has also been cited as widening the ...
'' (1925): In a 7–2 decision written by Justice Taft, the court created the
motor vehicle exception
The motor vehicle exception is a legal rule in the United States that modifies the normal probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and, when applicable, allows a police officer to search a motor vehicle ...
, which allows
warrantless searches of automobiles.
*''
Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.
''Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.'', 272 U.S. 365 (1926), more commonly ''Euclid v. Ambler'', was a United States Supreme Court landmark case argued in 1926. It was the first significant case regarding the relatively new practice of zoning. ...
'' (1926): In a 6–3 decision written by Justice Sutherland, the court upheld a local
zoning
Zoning is a method of urban planning in which a municipality or other tier of government divides land into areas called zones, each of which has a set of regulations for new development that differs from other zones. Zones may be defined for a si ...
measure as a valid use of
police power. The court ruled that the local ordinace did not violate the
Due Process Clause
In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as ...
, as it was not discriminatory and had a
rational basis
In U.S. constitutional law, rational basis review is the normal standard of review that courts apply when considering constitutional questions, including due process or equal protection questions under the Fifth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment ...
.
*''
Buck v. Bell
''Buck v. Bell'', 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including th ...
'' (1927): In an 8–1 decision written by Justice Holmes, the court upheld the
Racial Integrity Act of 1924
In 1924, the Virginia General Assembly enacted the Racial Integrity Act. The act reinforced racial segregation by prohibiting interracial marriage and classifying as "white" a person "who has no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian ...
, a Virginia statute authorizing
compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, is a government-mandated program to involuntarily sterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done throug ...
of the
intellectually disabled
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation,Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signific ...
at some state institutions.
*''
Lum v. Rice
''Lum v. Rice'', 275 U.S. 78 (1927), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the exclusion on account of race of a child of Chinese ancestry from a public school did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United St ...
'' (1927): A unanimous opinion by Taft upheld a Mississippi school district's expulsion of a
Chinese American
Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...
student from a whites-only school on the grounds that Mississippi law did not consider Asians to be white, greatly expanding the scope of permissible racial discrimination in American schools until ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...
'' outlawed it 27 years later.
*''
Olmstead v. United States
''Olmstead v. United States'', 277 U.S. 438 (1928), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, on the matter of whether wiretapping of private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without a search warrant and subsequ ...
'' (1928): In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Taft, the court upheld the conviction of
Roy Olmstead
Roy Olmstead (September 18, 1886 – April 30, 1966) was one of the most successful and best-known bootleggers in the Pacific Northwest region during American Prohibition. A former lieutenant in the Seattle Police Department, he began smuggl ...
and held that wiretapping private telephone conversations does not violate the
Fourth Amendment or the
Fifth Amendment. The case was overruled by ''
Katz v. United States
''Katz v. United States'', 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes a "search" or "seizure" with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ...
'' (1967).
Judicial philosophy
The Taft Court struck down numerous economic regulations in defense of a ''
laissez-faire
''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups. ...
'' economy, but largely avoided striking down laws that affected civil liberties.
[Galloway, Jr., 1-4] The court struck down both federal and state regulations, with the latter often being struck down on basis of the
dormant commerce clause
The Dormant Commerce Clause, or Negative Commerce Clause, in American constitutional law, is a legal doctrine that courts in the United States have inferred from the Commerce Clause in Article I of the United States Constitution, Article I of the U ...
.
The court also tended to take the side of businesses over unions, rarely intervened to protect minorities, and generally issued conservative rulings with regard to
criminal procedure
Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or ...
. During the preceding White Court, progressives came close to taking control of the court, but Harding's appointments shored up the conservative wing.
Holmes and Brandeis (and Clarke, before his retirement) formed the progressive wing of the court and were more willing to uphold government regulations. McReynolds, Van Devanter, and the Harding appointees (Taft, Sutherland, Butler, and Sanford) made up the conservative bloc and frequently voted to strike down
progressive
Progressive may refer to:
Politics
* Progressivism, a political philosophy in support of social reform
** Progressivism in the United States, the political philosophy in the American context
* Progressive realism, an American foreign policy par ...
legislation such as child labor laws.
Van Devanter, Taft, Sutherland, Butler, and Sanford formed a cohesive quintet that often voted together, while McReynolds was more likely than the others to dissent from the right. McKenna was the lone swing judge following the departures of Pitney and Day, though McKenna became more conservative as he neared retirement.
In 1925, President
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican lawyer ...
appointed Attorney General
Harlan F. Stone
Harlan Fiske Stone (October 11, 1872 – April 22, 1946) was an American attorney and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1925 to 1941 and then as the 12th chief justice of the United States from 1941 un ...
to replace McKenna, and Stone surprised many by aligning with Holmes and Brandeis.
[Galloway, Jr., 16-17]
References
Further reading
Works centering on the Taft Court
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Works centering on Taft Court judges
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* , brief popular biography
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Other relevant works
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{{US1stAmendment Freedom of Speech Clause Taft Court case law
1920s in the United States
United States Supreme Court history by court
Court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...