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Franklin D. Roosevelt's Bold Move In 1937 To Reshape the Supreme Court Legislation Didn't Pass But Court Scared Into Approving New Deal
Offered here is a complete February 5, 1937 newspaper, Foster's Daily Democrat, which headlines Franklin D. Roosevelt's court-packing scheme to assure that the Supreme Court would approve all his New Deal legislation of questionable constitutionality which had previously been rejected. The newspaper article accepts President Roosevelt's spin that it was an effort to eliminate court delays rather than a blatant power grab. The front page article does, however, accurately summarize the plan, as shown below:
In his 1993 book Roosevelt biographer Kenneth S. Davis said commentators of the 1930s described the battle between Roosevelt and the Supreme Court as "the gravest constitutional crisis since the Civil War." Below is an example of how academic historians typically treat FDR's court-packing scheme: it was a political disaster, but thank heavens it worked in changing the Court's interpretation of the Constitution.
The changes wrought in Constitutional interpretation after Roosevelt's court-packing scheme and subsequent appointments was truly revolutionary, it completely changed the interpretation of the Constitution accepted from 1787 thorough 1937 and substituted a new jurisprudence that greatly increased federal government power and limited the role of state governments. The newspaper offered here heralds the beginning of that revolution. Price: SOLD |