Four Horsemen of the Supreme Court
The four judges Pierce Butler , James C. McReynolds , George Sutherland and Willis Van Devanter were referred to as Four Horsemen of the Supreme Court or Four Horsemen of Reaction , based on the four horsemen of the apocalypse , in the contemporary American press served together in the United States Supreme Court . Characteristic of their joint work was a markedly conservative political stance and, from the beginning of the 1930s, their bitter rejection of the government's economic and social reformsUS President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the New Deal era . With alternating support from two other judges, they succeeded in repealing important Roosevelt bills as unconstitutional. The era of the Four Horsemen ended in 1937 with the withdrawal of Willis Van Devanter and George Sutherland from the court and the appointment of progressive successors by Roosevelt.
Personalities
The judges, designated as Four Horsemen , were Willis Van Devanter, nominated by William Howard Taft in 1910 , James C. McReynolds, nominated by Woodrow Wilson in 1914, and Pierce Butler and George Sutherland, both of whom were appointed in 1922 during the presidency of Warren G. Harding came into office. All four were extremely conservative and consistently opposed the economic and social reforms adopted by the Roosevelt administration during the New Deal era in response to the severe economic crisis known as the Great Depression , which began in 1929 . While McReynolds belonged to the conservative wing of the Democratic Party , Van Devanter, Butler and Sutherland were conservative Republicans . George Sutherland was considered the group's intellectual leader.
Pierce Butler
(1866–1939)
In office 1922–1939
James C. McReynolds
(1862–1946)
In office 1914–1941
George Sutherland
(1862–1942)
In office 1922–1938
Willis Van Devanter
(1859–1941)
In office 1910–1937
Act
The Four Horsemen faced three Liberal judges Louis Brandeis , Benjamin N. Cardozo and Harlan Fiske Stone in their rejection of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation . In this constellation the voting behavior of the two judges who were not assigned to either of the two blocks was decisive for the decisions of the court, which consists of nine judges. Of the two, presiding judge Charles Evans Hughes mostly agreed with the three liberal judges, while Owen Roberts often leaned on the four conservative judges. By supporting Roberts or in some cases of Hughes succeeded the Four Horsemen , important legislation of the New Deal as the Agricultural Adjustment Act , the Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act , the Railroad Act , the Coal Mining Act and the National Industrial Recovery Act not as to be constitutionally rejected.
The conflict between the judiciary on the one hand and the legislature and executive on the other , which had arisen through the work of the Four Horsemen , Roosevelt attempted to resolve in his favor by means of a bill known as the Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 . This law would have given him the opportunity to appoint an additional judge for every incumbent judge who did not resign at the latest six months after reaching the age of 70. Due to the age of the four conservative judges, he could have changed the distribution of power in the court in his favor in a short time. However, the bill failed after the US Senate referred the bill back to the Justice Committee . In addition, after the introduction of the legislative initiative, Roberts carried out his voting behavior in the decision of West Coast Hotel Co. Parrish changed course in favor of New Deal legislation.
The Four Horsemen era ended in 1937 with the retirement of Willis Van Devanter from the court and the appointment of Hugo Black as his successor. Sutherland also left the court a year later, followed by Stanley Forman Reed, an advocate of the New Deal. Butler died in office in 1939, McReynolds resigned in 1941 for health reasons. In the same year, Harlan Fiske Stone, one of Roosevelt's liberal judges, was appointed to succeed Hughes as presiding judge.
Historical evaluation
In a statement issued under the title "Rating Supreme Court Justices' survey of university teachers for legal or political science and history , which the law professors Albert Blaustein from Rutgers University and Roy M. Mersky of the University of Texas conducted in 1970, were George Sutherland's performance was rated the second best ("Near great") of five categories, while Pierce Butler, James McReynolds and Willis Van Devanter were among the eight judges whose work was classified in the lowest category ("Failure"). In contrast, Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo and Harlan Fiske Stone as well as Charles Evans Hughes received the highest rating (“Great”) and Owen Roberts the third highest (“Average”).
Bernard Schwartz, a professor at New York University , named Louis Brandeis and Charles Evans Hughes among the top ten judges in court history in his 1997 book, A Book of Legal Lists: The Best and Worst of American Law James McReynolds and Pierce Butler ranked worst ten. In a study published in 1998 under the title “Has the modern Senate Confirmation Process Affected the Quality of US Supreme Court Justices?” By Michael Comiskey, Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University , based on a survey of 61 constitutional lawyers, both three counted Liberal judges Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo and Harlan Fiske Stone as well as Charles Evans Hughes were among the eleven judges who were awarded the highest of five possible ratings (“excellent”).
literature
- The Four Horsemen. In: Christopher L. Tomlins: The United States Supreme Court: The Pursuit of Justice. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston 2005, ISBN 0-61-832969-2 , pp. 246-248
- The Supreme Court and Economic Regulation. In: Richard A. Maidment: The Judicial Response to the New Deal: The US Supreme Court and Economic Regulation, 1934-1936. Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York 1991, ISBN 0-71-903332-2 , pp. 13-28
- Four Horsemen. In: James Stuart Olson : Historical Dictionary of the Great Depression, 1929-1940. Greenwood Press, Westport 2001, ISBN 0-31-330618-4 , p. 117
- Melody Reis, Bret Beheim: A Theory of Social Formalism: The Four Horsemen and the New Deal. In: Law and Society Review at USCB. Volume 2, 2003. University of California, Santa Barbara, pp. 85-94, ISSN 1544-8746
- Rating Supreme Court Justices. In: Henry Julian Abraham: Justices, Presidents and Senators: A History of the US Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Bush II. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2007, ISBN 0-74-255895-9 , pp. 373-376