From Simon & Schuster, Hugo Black and the Judicial Revolution is "one of the prime judicial biographies of our time." (Max Lerner) A native of St. Louis, Professor Dunne is a graduate of Georgetown University and St. Louis University Law School. He is the author of Monetary Decisions of the Supreme Court and Justice Joseph Story and The Rise of the Supreme Court.
Decades after his death, the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black continue to be studied and discussed. This definitive study of Black’s origins and early influences has been 25 years in the making and offers fresh insights into the justice’s character, thought processes, and instincts. Black came out of hardscrabble Alabama hill country, and he never forgot his origins. He was further shaped in the early 20th-century politics of Birmingham, where he set up a law practice and began his political career, eventually rising to the U.S. Senate, from which he was selected by FDR for the high court. Black’s nomination was opposed partly on the grounds that he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. One of the book’s conclusions that is sure to be controversial is that in the context of Birmingham in the early 1920s, Black’s joining of the KKK was a progressive act. This startling assertion is supported by an examination of the conflict that was then raging in Birmingham between the Big Mule industrialists and the blue-collar labor unions. Black of course went on to become a staunch judicial advocate of free speech and civil rights, thus making him one of the figures most vilified by the KKK and other white supremacists in the 1950s and 1960s.
The extraordinary story of a man who bestrode his era like a colossus, Hugo Black is the first and only comprehensive biography of the Supreme Court Justice of thirty four years, (1886-1971). Once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Black became one of the most celebrated and important civil libertarians in the history of the United States and the chief twentieth-century proponent of the First Amendment. Newman presents us with the long odyssey of Hugo Black, capturing the man as he wasa brilliant trial lawyer, the investigating senator called by one reporter a walking encyclopedia with a Southern accent, and the wily politician and astute justice who led the redirection of American law toward the protection of the individual.
The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the Chief and Associate Justices—maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising, and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.
For almost sixty years, the results of the New Deal have been an accepted part of political life. Social Security, to take one example, is now seen as every American's birthright. But to validate this revolutionary legislation, Franklin Roosevelt had to fight a ferocious battle against the opposition of the Supreme Court--which was entrenched in laissez faire orthodoxy. After many lost battles, Roosevelt won his war with the Court, launching a Constitutional revolution that went far beyond anything he envisioned. In The Supreme Court Reborn, esteemed scholar William E. Leuchtenburg explores the critical episodes of the legal revolution that created the Court we know today. Leuchtenburg deftly portrays the events leading up to Roosevelt's showdown with the Supreme Court. Committed to laissez faire doctrine, the conservative "Four Horsemen"--Justices Butler, Van Devanter, Sutherland, and McReynolds, aided by the swing vote of Justice Owen Roberts--struck down one regulatory law after another, outraging Roosevelt and much of the Depression-stricken nation. Leuchtenburg demonstrates that Roosevelt thought he had the backing of the country as he prepared a scheme to undermine the Four Hoursemen. Famous (or infamous) as the "Court-packing plan," this proposal would have allowed the president to add one new justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy. The plan picked up considerable momentum in Congress; it was only after a change in the voting of Justice Roberts (called "the switch in time that saved nine") and the death of Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson that it shuddered to a halt. Rosevelt's persistence led to one of his biggest legislative defeats. Despite the failure of the Court-packing plan, however, the president won his battle with the Supreme Court; one by one, the Four Horsemen left the bench, to be replaced by Roosevelt appointees. Leuchtenburg explores the far-reaching nature of FDR's victory. As a consequence of the Constitutional Revolution that began in 1937, not only was the New Deal upheld (as precedent after precedent was overturned), but also the Court began a dramatic expansion of Civil liberties that would culminate in the Warren Court. Among the surprises was Senator Hugo Black, who faced widespread opposition for his lack of qualifications when he was appointed as associate justice; shortly afterward, a reporter revealed that he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite that background, Black became an articulate spokesman for individual liberty. William E. Leuchtenburg is one of America's premier historians, a scholar who combines depth of learning with a graceful style. This superbly crafted book sheds new light on the great Constitutional crisis of our century, illuminating the legal and political battles that created today's Supreme Court.
In this volume, Howard Ball explores Hugo Black's development from his childhood days growing up in Alabama to his 34 years on the United States Supreme Court. Ball illustrates who and what shaped this controversial judge to become known as one of the "ten greatest" US Supreme Court justices of American history.
