"Originally published in 1928, this captivating book is comprised of six lectures given by Chief Justice Charles Evan Hughes at Columbia University in which he endeavored to interpret the work of the Court in an abbriviated form. Covered are the Court's origin, the principles that govern it, its methods, and the important results of its work. This last category includes the areas of cementing the nation, the States and the nation, and liberty, property, and social justice. The aim of this compact book, achieved in a very readable fashion, is to promote a better understanding of an institution that is a mystery to many people."--Back cover.
When Charles Evans Hughes defeated William Randolph Hearst for the governorship of New York in 1906, the New York State Republican Party was split between the remnants of the rural, conservative Platt political machine in Albany and the forces loyal to the progressive, energetic President and former New York Governor, Teddy Roosevelt. Although Hughes owed his nomination largely to Roosevelt's desire to weaken conservative influences, the aloof and independent governor's moral idealism and legal experience led him to positions more liberal and unyielding than even Roosevelt could endorse.In this thorough study of Hughes's two terms as governor, Robert F. Wesser depicts the tensions of conservativism and liberalism, corruption and moral indignation, which rent the state government under his administration. Making use of unpublished manuscript collections, both personal and organizational, and other primary sources, Wesser evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of Hughes as a political leader and reformer. He shows that despite opposition from his own party, Hughes's governorship produced important reform legislation in three areas: improvement of the machinery and processes of government; extension of the state's regulatory authority over businesses engaged in public services; and expansion of governmental police and welfare functions.These legislative achievements were supplemented by Hughes's relentless dedication to administrative efficiency, which helped shift the focus of New York politics from the legislature and party organization to the office of the governor. But not all Governor Hughes's efforts were successful, and Wesser carefully analyzes his failures as well as his triumphs-including the humiliating defeat at the hands of his own party's bosses in his quest to pass a direct primary voting bill-providing a complete portrait of a significant turning point in the history of New York and of the man who undermined some of the very foundations of the old political order. First published in 1967, Charles Evans Hughes remains an import work of scholarship on the history of New York and of the Progressive Era more broadly.
During the 1930s the U.S. Supreme Court abandoned its longtime function as an arbiter of economic regulation and assumed its modern role as a guardian of personal liberties. William G. Ross analyzes this turbulent period of constitutional transition and the leadership of one of its central participants in The Chief Justiceship of Charles Evans Hughes, 1930-1941. Tapping into a broad array of primary and secondary sources, Ross explores the complex interaction between the court and the political, economic, and cultural forces that transformed the nation during the Great Depression. Written with an appreciation for both the legal and historical contexts, this comprehensive volume explores how the Hughes Court removed constitutional impediments to the development of the administrative state by relaxing restrictions previously invoked to nullify federal and state economic regulatory legislation. Ross maps the expansion of safeguards for freedoms of speech, press, and religion and the extension of rights of criminal defendants and racial minorities. of African Americans helped to lay the legal foundations for the civil rights movement. Throughout his study Ross emphasizes how Chief Justice Hughes' brilliant administrative abilities and political acumen helped to preserve the Court's power and prestige during a period when the body's rulings were viewed as intensely controversial. Ross concludes that on balance the Hughes Court's decisions were more evolutionary than revolutionary but that the court also reflected the influence of the social changes of the era, especially after the appointment of justices who espoused the New Deal values of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“Highly illuminating ... for anyone interested in the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and the American democracy, lawyer and layperson alike." —The Los Angeles Review of Books In his major work, acclaimed historian and judicial authority Melvin Urofsky examines the great dissents throughout the Court’s long history. Constitutional dialogue is one of the ways in which we as a people reinvent and reinvigorate our democratic society. The Supreme Court has interpreted the meaning of the Constitution, acknowledged that the Court’s majority opinions have not always been right, and initiated a critical discourse about what a particular decision should mean before fashioning subsequent decisions—largely through the power of dissent. Urofsky shows how the practice grew slowly but steadily, beginning with the infamous and now overturned case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) during which Chief Justice Roger Taney’s opinion upheld slavery and ending with the present age of incivility, in which reasoned dialogue seems less and less possible. Dissent on the court and off, Urofsky argues in this major work, has been a crucial ingredient in keeping the Constitution alive and must continue to be so.
Between 1900 and 1940, Americans confronted a puzzle: how could administrative agencies address the nation's troubles without violating individual liberty? From the close reasoning of judges, the self-interest of lawyers, and the machinations of politicians, an answer emerged. 'Judicialize' agencies' procedures, and a 'rule of lawyers' would keep America free.
From the historic launch of the organization by such luminaries as Elihu Root and Charles Evans Hughes, to the recent era when international law is more and more in the public realm, Kirgis’s book traces the evolution of the organization and its relationship to events in the United States and around the world. As he says in the preface: '...In the end, the reader will have to make his/her own judgment about how well the Society has run the course it set out for itself in 1906. I hope this book will provide a basis for that judgment. And of course no judgment at this stage can be final. The American Society of International Law will carry on into its second century with new and continuing programs that take into account what it has done in its first one hundred years. It will continue to do its best to demonstrate not only what international law is or should be, but also that, in the words of former ASIL President Louis Henkin, international law matters.'
One of the most acclaimed and best political biographies of its time, Justice for All is a monumental work dedicated to a complicated and principled figure that will become a seminal work of twentieth-century U.S. history. In Justice for All, Jim Newton, an award-winning journalist for the Los Angeles Times, brings readers the first truly comprehensive consideration of Earl Warren, the politician-turned-Chief Justice who refashioned the place of the court in American life through landmark Supreme Court cases whose names have entered the common parlance -- Brown v. Board of Education, Griswold v. Connecticut, Miranda v. Arizona, to name just a few. Drawing on unmatched access to government, academic, and private documents pertaining to Warren's life and career, Newton explores a fascinating angle of U.S. Supreme Court history while illuminating both the public and the private Warren.
An in-depth analysis of the workings and legacy of the Supreme Court led by Charles Evans Hughes. Charles Evans Hughes, a man who, it was said, "looks like God and talks like God," became chief justice in 1930, a year when more than 1,000 banks closed their doors. Today the Hughes Court is often remembered as a conservative bulwark against Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. But that view, according to author Michael Parrish, is not accurate. In an era when Nazi Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws and extinguished freedom in much of Western Europe, the Hughes Court put the stamp of constitutional approval on New Deal entitlements, required state and local governments to bring their laws into conformity with the federal Bill of Rights, and took the first steps toward developing a more uniform code of criminal justice.
