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Prelude
Many people think of the United States as a young country. Yet it has the oldest written constitution among the major nations of the world. Moreover, it was, for the first time in history, a constitution that specifically limited the powers that the federal government would be able to exercise over its citizens.
Soon after the 3 million people who lived in the United States had won the Revolutionary War, various groups among them became discontented with the Articles of Confederation . The government under the Confederation seemed too weak to control the people at home or to make the new republic respected abroad.
One difficulty was that Congress lacked sufficient power to raise money: it could only make requests of the states. It was always poor, while generous states such as New York and Pennsylvania complained that they paid more than their share. Congress also had no authority to regulate commerce. When some of the states began laying tariffs and other burdens on the shipping trade of their neighbors, it caused heavy losses.
All states were supposed to abide by the Articles of Confederation; yet some states violated them. They made treaties with the Indians and agreements with each other. They ignored foreign treaties made by Congress and regulated the value of money.
Need for a Stronger Government
By 1785 it seemed to many patriotic citizens of the United States that the Confederation was a failure. Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, and other leaders repeatedly declared that the government ought to be strengthened. In 1782 the assembly of New York, and in 1785 the legislature of Massachusetts, voted in favor of a constitutional convention.
Some Americans had special reasons for wanting a stronger government. One group was made up of the Westerners, who after the American Revolution moved into Kentucky, Tennessee, and the new Northwest Territory. They wanted a powerful federal government to protect them from the Indians, Spaniards, and British.
Others who speculated in western lands believed that a strong government would make these lands more valuable. Another group consisted of merchants, traders, and shipowners who suffered from tariff wars among the states and from injurious British laws. Other men, who had lent money to the government during the war or just after it, felt a stronger government would be more likely to repay them.
Perhaps the most important group was made up of well-to-do men who owned mortgages and notes. They feared that state legislatures controlled by poor debtors would issue huge sums of worthless paper money or would protect debtors who refused to pay their debts. They wanted a strong national government to take complete control of the currency and to prevent any state laws impairing the obligation of contracts. In 1786 the money issue flared into riots in Vermont and New Hampshire and caused Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts.
Pre-Convention Activity
The convention that wrote the Constitution was prepared for by a number of small steps. The first was a meeting in 1785 between representatives of Virginia and Maryland, called the Alexandria Conference, to settle disputes over the navigation of the Potomac River. Washington and Madison took the lead in having this meeting called. It proved so successful that Maryland went a step further and proposed that Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia should all appoint commissioners to meet and adopt a uniform commercial system. The shrewd Madison saw the opportunity of doing something still more important. He proposed a convention not of four states, but of all the states, to discuss the commercial conditions of the time and to devise an amendment to the Articles of Confederation. This convention was to meet in Annapolis in 1786.
When the time came only five states sent representatives to the convention in Annapolis, and their opinions were far from harmonious. But Madison and Hamilton were both present and looking toward the future. They persuaded the representatives before adjourning to issue a call for a general convention of all the states to meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday of May 1787. This was to be the Constitutional Convention. But because many people were suspicious of any such action, the call had to be made cautiously. It proposed that the gathering should "take into consideration the situation of the United States," and devise improvements in the government. Congress, after some hesitation, finally endorsed the plan, declaring that the states should send delegates for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.
The plan for the convention had the warm support of Washington, Franklin, and other eminent men. Virginia was the first state to choose delegates, and contributed greatly to the success of the undertaking by selecting Washington. Before the date set, 11 states had named their delegates. New Hampshire did not send its members until the work was well begun. Rhode Island refused to send any at all. The legislatures, not the people, chose the delegates.
A Notable Assembly
The convention was not a large gathering, for only 55 men, from first to last, attended. But it was a body of very remarkable ability. Any American who, in the summer of 1787, happened to be in the city of Philadelphia, with its broad leafy streets and red brick buildings, would have seen such a collection of statesmen as could hardly then be matched in any other country. He would have seen Washington striding at the head of the Virginia group--James Madison, Edmund Randolph, George Mason, George Wythe, John Blair, and James McClurg. He would have noticed Benjamin Franklin talking with three of the other Pennsylvania delegates--James Wilson, who was one of the ablest lawyers in America, Robert Morris, the financial leader of the Revolution, and Gouverneur Morris.
New York contributed, along with two "States' Rights" delegates who soon withdrew, the brilliant Alexander Hamilton. From South Carolina came John Rutledge, Charles Pinckney, and C.C. Pinckney. Massachusetts sent Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King; and Connecticut sent Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. It was a body of men well fitted to produce a great document. Many were lawyers. Most of them had had experience in government. Nearly all of them were either men of large property interests or close to men who had such interests.
Pass Rule for Secrecy
The convention opened tardily on May 25, in the brick State House in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. Washington was unanimously elected to preside, a fact which prevented him from taking active part in the debates. Three principal rules were adopted. The votes were to be taken by states, each state having one vote; seven states were to constitute a quorum; and strict secrecy was to be preserved. The delegates wished to be safe from outside criticism or pressure. The official journal kept was the merest record of motions and votes, and was not published till 1819.
These rules having been adopted, the delegates turned to a task upon which there was no general agreement. The overshadowing question was whether they should merely revise the Articles of Confederation, or should make a new constitution. Most delegates had been elected upon the understanding that they were merely to revise the existing government, and some had specific instructions to that effect. But Washington advised against "temporizing expedients." Within a week the convention resolved in committee of the whole that "a national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary," and such leaders as Madison and Hamilton calmly assumed that this meant a complete new constitution.
This done, the convention faced two problems which loomed up above all others. If a strong federal government was established, how was it to be given authority? Was it to be permitted to coerce the different states? If so, just how? In the second place, how was power to be adjusted between the large states, like Pennsylvania, and the small states, like Delaware? As the work progressed, other questions arose and had to be settled by a process of give and take. The Constitution in its final form was a bundle of compromises, but the great compromise was that between the large and the small states.
Two important plans shortly came before the convention. One was the so-called Virginia plan. Largely the work of Madison, it was presented to the convention by Edmund Randolph. The other was the New Jersey plan, a series of seven resolutions submitted by William Paterson of New Jersey. The Virginia plan represented the standpoint of the large states and involved writing an entirely new constitution; the New Jersey plan represented the ideas of the small states and was simply a set of amendments to the old Articles of Confederation.
Under the Virginia plan there was to be a national legislature, or Congress of two chambers, in which the states should be represented in proportion either to their money contributions or to their free populations. The members of the lower house were to be elected by the people and were to choose the upper house out of lists submitted by the state legislatures. The chief executive was to be elected by the national Congress, for a single term, and there were to be a Supreme Court and a system of lower courts.
The New Jersey plan provided for a national congress of one house, each state to have a single vote. The chief executive was to be chosen by Congress, and there was to be a system of federal courts.
Still another plan was presented by Charles Pinckney; but the draft of this plan has been lost, and so historians do not agree on the extent of Pinckney's influence on the Constitution. Hamilton also offered suggestions. His "propositions" indicated a very powerful central government, with a chief executive and a senate chosen for life terms and with the states reduced to a very weak position. Of all the schemes presented, however, the Virginia plan was the most important.
The Great Compromise
The debate on the Virginia and New Jersey plans revealed the dangerous jealousy between the large states, demanding representation according to population, and the small states, insisting upon equal representation. Men on each side repeatedly threatened to break up the convention and go home. The large states were the stronger and carried a resolution against equal representation in the lower house of Congress.
Thereupon the Connecticut delegates brought forward a successful compromise. They proposed that the states be equally represented in the Senate and represented according to population in the lower chamber or House. After much grumbling the large states accepted this scheme.
Then followed a series of minor compromises. In computing the population of the states for representation in the lower chamber, should slaves be counted? The Southern states naturally demanded that they should, while the Northern states wished them passed over as mere property. Fortunately the Continental Congress had already provided a method of settling this dispute. In 1783 it had proposed an amendment to the Articles of Confederation by which the money requisitions upon the states were to be based upon population, with three fifths of the slaves counted. This amendment had been accepted by 11 states. It was now decided that in determining representation in the House of Representatives, five slaves should count for three free persons.
Another compromise dealt with the federal regulation of commerce. The Northern states, which had suffered from commercial chaos, wished to give Congress ample powers to regulate business activities. In the Southern states, however, farmers feared that Congress might lay an export tax upon their cotton and tobacco. The result was that Congress was given wide powers over navigation, foreign and interstate trade, and custom duties, but it was specifically forbidden to levy export duties.
Still another compromise had to do with the importation of black slaves from Africa. Though slavery was not yet a sectional issue, some Northerners would gladly have seen this cruel slave trade abolished. Moreover, Virginia and Maryland bred slaves for the market and wished to stop the African competition. When Georgia and the Carolinas protested, a compromise provided that Congress might stop the importation in 1808 but not sooner.
Little by little, as the summer wore on, a strong central government was hammered out on the forge of the convention. The now familiar features--the representatives chosen for two years and the senators for six; the president serving four years, with possible reelection; and the federal judges appointed for life --were agreed on. One striking feature of the new Constitution was the large power given to Congress over economic and financial affairs. Not only was Congress authorized to regulate commerce, but it was given the right to raise money by taxation, to borrow on the national credit, and to coin money and regulate its value. Strict provisions were inserted forbidding the states to issue paper money or to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts. These clauses reflected the unhappy recent history of some states. The debts contracted under the Confederation were recognized as valid. The unanimity of opinion on these features was striking. There was no struggle in the convention between creditor groups and debtor groups, between representatives of the poor and of the wealthy.
The great problem of how to give the federal government proper authority was finally solved with surprising ease. This was done by providing that the new government should operate not upon the states, but directly upon the people. Its mandates were to be carried out not by orders and demands upon a set of semi-independent state governments but by the quiet activity of its own administrative officers, attorneys, marshals, and courts.
The Virginia plan, the New Jersey plan, and the Pinckney plan had all proposed some method of coercing the states. All schemes for state coercion, however, were obviously dangerous and futile. They would be sure to break down. Madison wisely saw that it would be sufficient to give the new federal government the power to proceed against individuals all over the nation. The two systems, state and federal, would for the most part operate on parallel lines. Whenever they did come into conflict, the Constitution would define their respective powers.
The Constitution Is Drafted
By September the work was nearly done. The essentials of the Constitution, based on the Virginia plan, had first been thrashed out in committee of the whole. The work of this body was reported to the convention for full debate and amendment. Then near the end of July, the draft of the Constitution was handed over to a committee on detail, which gave it many finishing touches. As a final step, Gouverneur Morris went over the completed Constitution to put it in the clearest and most precise English. On Sept. 17, 1787, it was signed by 39 members and was ready for the people to approve or reject.
At the outset it seemed doubtful whether the Constitution would be ratified by the nine states that the convention declared would suffice to make it effective. For almost a year the American people were interested in nothing so much as whether the "new roof" would be accepted. It was discussed in taverns, in shops, and on the streets. Everyone knew that most of the rich folk who owned fine houses and estates were for it; so were the professional men--most of the lawyers, doctors, and ministers; and so were nearly all the merchants. The creditors both of the state governments and of the Confederation strongly favored it. On the other hand, the poor people, the workingmen, farmers, and many backwoodsmen, were in large part suspicious of it. Such leaders as Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams, who were attached to local liberty, showed hostility because they feared an undue concentration of authority. Many people declared, and with reason, that the Constitution was faulty because it contained no guarantee of the simplest human rights--freedom of speech, of the press, of assemblage, and of worship.
Fight for Ratification
If the Federalists, as the advocates of the Constitution were called, had not used the cleverest tactics, they would have been defeated. One by one the states held conventions to debate the instrument. A favorable impression was produced when the first five conventions readily voted for ratification. Delaware came under the " new roof" on Dec. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania on December 12; New Jersey on December 18; and within the first two weeks of 1788, Georgia and Connecticut. In other states, however, hard fighting was required. In Massachusetts a majority of the delegates was at first unfriendly, and the convention wrangled for almost a month. The Federalists were led by Rufus King, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, and others. By determined argument, by bringing special influences to bear on the influential Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and by consenting to nine suggested amendments, they finally won. The minimum number of nine states was assured when New Hampshire ratified the Constitution June 21, 1788.
Of the four remaining states, however, two were considered vital to success--Virginia and New York. In Richmond, Patrick Henry and George Mason argued against the Constitution while James Madison, John Marshall, and George Washington skillfully directed the Federalist forces. Finally, on June 25, 1788, Virginia voted for ratification by a close margin.
The hardest battle of all occurred in New York, where only the genius of Alexander Hamilton won the victory. He hit upon the happy idea of publishing in the New York newspapers a series of essays explaining and defending the Constitution. These were later issued in book form under the title `The Federalist.' Madison and John Jay contributed some of them, but Hamilton wrote the great majority. No better exposition of the Constitution has ever been penned. When the convention met in Poughkeepsie, the Anti-Federalists had a two-thirds majority. Opposed to them were Hamilton and his able lieutenants Jay and Robert R. Livingston. Their irresistible arguments were helped by the fact that all but two other states had already ratified, and it was a question of union or disunion. On July 26, 1788, by a vote of 30 to 27, New York accepted.
The Constitution which thus became the supreme law of the land seemed then to contain marked imperfections. Later it was realized that the Convention of 1787 had done its work better than it knew. The strength and symmetry of its handiwork have been the admiration of the world ever since and have had a profound influence in many parts of the globe. The British statesman William Gladstone paid tribute to the Constitution, though in somewhat mistaken terms, as "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man. "
It is true that in some respects the makers of the Constitution miscalculated. Their greatest error, hardly avoidable because of public opinion, was their refusal to define more precisely the sphere and rights of the states, including the so-called "right of secession." This contributed later to the catastrophe of the Civil War. The careful plan for indirect election of the president by an electoral college was shortly nullified by the growth of political parties, and custom has made the electors mere nonentities. No one saw at the time what a powerful place would be occupied by the Supreme Court. Although a majority of the leading men of the convention seem to have believed that the Court would possess the right to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of Congress, there was no explicit statement to that effect.
There were also grave questions the Constitution failed to treat. It contained no provision regarding the future annexation of territory, nor did it grant clear title to the offshore areas of coastal states. Naturally, many commercial questions which arose in later generations could not have been foreseen by the authors of the Constitution. They did not expect the federal government to become as strong, at the expense of the states, as it has become. On the whole, the "fathers of the Constitution" did well.
Its Deep-Rooted Origins
One reason for the success of the Constitution lay in the fact that it was not really, as Gladstone said, "struck off at a given time," but was rather the result of generations of growth. It was a noble tree which rose from the two great taproots of English and colonial self-government. Almost everything in it can be traced back to earlier sources--the balance between the legislative, executive, and judicial departments; the special duties and powers assigned to each; the methods of operation prescribed; even such features as the electoral college, which was borrowed from Maryland. In particular, the convention profited by the work of the states in making their own constitutions. Between 1775 and 1787 every state except Rhode Island and Connecticut (which took over their colonial charters) had written at least one constitution, and some had adopted two or three. These experiments by the states furnished many lessons of profit to the men who met in Philadelphia.
Even before all the states had ratified, the machinery of the new government was put in motion. During September, Congress fixed the dates for the choice of presidential electors, the election of the president, and the inauguration of the machinery of administration. Although there was some delay, it was not serious. On Feb. 4, 1789, Washington was elected president, and on April 30 he took the oath of office. Soon afterward North Carolina and Rhode Island, the two laggard states, ratified the Constitution, and the circle of the original 13 colonies was completed.
No constitution can long exist without change and growth. Some of the most important alterations in the American Constitution have taken place quietly and without the adding or dropping of a single phrase. They were changes in custom and interpretation. Other changes were made by formal amendment for which the Constitution provides several different methods. The government had hardly been launched before the first ten amendments were adopted.
The Bill of Rights
These first ten amendments form the so-called Bill of Rights. The makers of the Constitution had considered it unnecessary to forbid some of the elementary invasions of personal liberty and property rights. Many of the people, however, wanted just such reassurances. They remembered the long struggle in England to secure these rights and the difficulty in America of protecting them against the crown and the royal governors. Virginia and other states, in ratifying the Constitution, made it plain that they expected a bill of rights to be added, and Madison led the movement in the first Congress.
Twelve amendments were proposed and all but the first two were ratified in time to go into effect on Dec. 15, 1791. They provided for freedom of speech, of the press, and of worship; for the right of the states to establish militia; for the security of people in their homes against unreasonable search and seizure; and for trial by jury. Some of these amendments were destined to be important. Particularly so was the tenth amendment, declaring that powers not delegated to the United States or prohibited to the states should be reserved to the states or to the people.
The next two amendments, made within ten years, furnished a remedy for defects which experience had brought to light. In 1793 the Supreme Court had held that a citizen of one state could sue another state in the federal courts. This shocked everyone who held strong states' rights views, for it seemed a violation of state sovereignty. In 1798 the 11th amendment was adopted, declaring that no citizen of a state and no foreigner could bring a state government into the federal courts to be sued. The 12th amendment met a much more serious flaw in the Constitution. It had been provided that the presidential electors should meet in their respective states and vote for two persons, and that the one having the most votes (if a majority) should be president, and the one with the second largest number should be vice-president. This led in 1800 to a tie between Jefferson and Burr, both Democrats, for the presidency, though everyone had understood that Jefferson was to be president and Burr vice-president. The 12th amendment, ratified in 1804, therefore provided that the electors should vote for president on one ballot, and for vice-president on another.
Amendments After the Civil War
Until 1865 the country functioned well with these 12 amendments. The end of the Civil War, however, made it necessary for the United States to deal with a group of questions about slavery and black Americans. The blacks' freedom had to be assured. Their rights as citizens had to be guaranteed. Many Northerners believed that blacks should be given the vote. The result was the ratification of three amendments that defined the place of the black freedmen in national life. The first, the 13th amendment, declared simply that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime, should ever exist in the United States. The South, except for the state of Mississippi, ratified the amendment, and it was proclaimed on Dec. 18, 1865.
The 14th amendment--the so-called civil rights amendment--was accepted with far greater reluctance. Many Northerners feared that despite the abolition of slavery blacks would soon be reduced to their former position--to serfdom or peonage. This fear increased when several Southern states passed laws that greatly restricted the rights of blacks. Congress therefore drafted an amendment that declared that no state should abridge the rights of any citizen of the United States, or "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law," or deny any person the equal protection of the laws. In short, the amendment was intended to make sure that black citizens would have the same civil rights as white citizens. This amendment, which also excluded certain supporters of the Confederacy from holding office, was bitter medicine to the South. Nevertheless it became a part of the Constitution in July 1868.
Meanwhile, the growth of radical feeling in the North on the question of reconstruction and the desire of the Republicans to gain the black vote made Congress insist that the Southern states must give blacks the ballot. They had to do this before they were allowed to send representatives to sit in Congress. It was generally believed, however, that the South planned to circumvent this provision. In 1869, therefore, Congress passed the 15th amendment, which declared that the right of citizens to vote should not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Much to the anger of most Southern whites, this became a part of the Constitution in March 1870.
Many years passed without further amendment. Then within a decade, in the Taft and Wilson administrations, four more were added. One, the 16th, enabled Congress to impose an income tax. Such taxes had actually been levied during the Civil War. When Congress passed a new income tax law in the early 1890s, however, the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. This produced much indignation, especially in the West. The agitation for an amendment authorizing such a law grew until it became part of the Constitution in February 1913. In the same year the 17th amendment provided that United States senators should be elected by vote of the people instead of the legislatures. It was believed that this would give the country abler and more honest senators.
The 18th and 19th amendments were the products of great popular movements extending over many decades. The 18th amendment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor for beverage purposes, was ratified in January 1919 and went into effect a year later. The 19th amendment, giving women the vote, was proclaimed in August 1920.
In 1933 two more amendments were added. The 20th changed the dates when the president and members of Congress take office, thus eliminating the so-called "lame duck" sessions of Congress. The 21st repealed the prohibition amendment (the 18th).
The 22nd amendment was added in 1951. It limited the president to two terms or to a maximum of ten years in office. The 23rd amendment, added in 1961, granted residents of Washington, D.C., the right to vote in presidential elections. The 24th, or antipoll-tax amendment, added in 1964, provided that citizens could not be denied the right to vote in presidential or congressional elections because of failure to pay a tax. The 25th amendment, added in 1967, established procedures for the appointment of a vice-president if that office should fall vacant and for the vice-president to become acting president if the president should prove unable to perform his duties. In 1971 the 26th amendment reduced the voting age to 18 years.
The 27th amendment was finally ratified in 1992, 203 years after James Madison had introduced it. It restrains Congressional salaries by barring Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises.
In the United States there are two methods, other than amendment, of adjusting the Constitution to new conditions. One is by custom. It was custom, for example, that established a method of electing presidents different from that laid down in the Constitution.
The Supreme Court and the Constitution
The other method of adjustment is through the Supreme Court's interpretations of the Constitution. Since the days of John Marshall, the fourth chief justice, the Supreme Court has been helping the Constitution to meet new demands arising from national growth and changes in public opinion.
The Constitution is a written document whose words cannot be changed except by the process of amendment described in Article V. But the meaning of the words is not always interpreted in the same way by members of opposing political parties or by persons engaged in lawsuits. Thus it has been necessary for someone to interpret it. This duty is entrusted to the Supreme Court. It provides that the Constitution and the laws made "in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land."
The Supreme Court therefore has two kinds of duties: one, to decide cases of law; the other, to decide what the Constitution means. Sometimes people who have been dissatisfied with decisions made by the Supreme Court have said that the power to determine the meaning of the Constitution ought to be exercised by Congress; but since a law inconsistent with the Constitution cannot be a valid law, it must not be enforced. Only the court before which the enforcement of such a law comes can easily make the decision. Early in its history the Supreme Court was obliged to face this situation. In the case of Marbury vs. Madison (1803) the Court declared an act of Congress void because the act was incompatible with the Constitution. The power has not often been exercised, but it indicates the difference between the United States government, with a fixed basic law, and a constitutional government such as that of Britain, in which the constitution at any moment consists of all the laws that have been passed.
The Constitution has twice been amended because the people did not like the interpretation given it by the Supreme Court. After the decision in Chisholm vs. Georgia (1793), in which the Court ruled that a state might be sued by a private citizen of another state, the 11th amendment was promptly adopted forbidding this sort of suit. Governments do not permit themselves to be sued as though they were private individuals. Again, when the income tax of 1894 was declared unconstitutional in Pollock vs. Farmers Loan and Trust Company (1895), the 16th amendment was brought forward to authorize such an income tax.
On a third occasion it might have been necessary to amend the Constitution if the Supreme Court had not taken a broad view of its meaning. Jefferson thought the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional because the right to acquire territory is not enumerated in the Constitution. The Supreme Court decided, however, in American Insurance Company vs. Canter (1828) that the right to annex territory may be derived from either the power to declare war or the power to conclude treaties. Later, when the annexation of the Philippines raised the question of the right to govern them, the decision in the Insular Cases (1901) upheld the authority of the government. John Marshall, while chief justice, made many of the most significant constitutional decisions because the problems that came before the Supreme Court in his day were new (see Marshall, John ). One of these concerned the power of Congress to create a national bank. In McCulloch vs. Maryland (1819), his judgment contained what is perhaps the most important interpretation of the meaning of the Constitution: "Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional." This is called the doctrine of "implied powers."
Some Historic Court Decisions
In this spirit the federal courts have made several historic decisions in interpreting the clause giving Congress power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states." As a result of these decisions Congress has exerted wide controls over business. The decision in Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824) forbade the states to take action interfering with the free use of rivers and harbors. The right to regulate railroad rates by law was established after the decision in Munn vs. Illinois (1877). In Wabash, St. Louis, and Pacific R.R. vs. Illinois (1886) the Court decided that no such regulation by a state could be sustained if it incidentally fixed part of a rate for an interstate transaction. In the Northern Securities Case (1904) a great railroad combination was broken up because its organization was inconsistent with the acts of Congress passed to regulate interstate commerce.
Sometimes the decisions of the Supreme Court have occurred when party feeling has run high. In Dred Scott vs. Sandford (1857) the right of a black to sue as a citizen was denied. In this case the justices expressed opinions, not essential to the case itself (dicta they are called), that made this Dred Scott Decision a means of inflaming opinion before the Civil War. The Court has been attacked because it upheld the power of Congress to issue the "greenbacks" of the Civil War, in the Legal Tender Cases (1871). It was criticized by some when, in Fletcher vs. Peck (1810), it upheld the obligation of contracts, and refused to permit even a state to repudiate such an obligation. It was for this reason, so that judges might be independent, and not fearful that unpopular decisions might result in their dismissal, that the Constitution provides federal judges shall hold office for life. They can be removed only after impeachment and conviction for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
The Constitution and the New Deal
A crisis in the history of judicial review was reached in 1937 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt threatened to "pack" the Supreme Court by adding new members because the "nine old men" had invalidated New Deal legislation. His proposal failed; but deaths and resignations enabled him to appoint men more in accord with his philosophy of government.
Since then the court has usually validated acts favorable to social welfare and labor. In 1954 it ruled that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th amendment. In 1960 it upheld the constitutionality of the union shop. (See also Supreme Court . ) anonymous
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The U. S. Constitution
