US Supreme Court justice from 1914 to 1941
James McReynolds | |
|---|---|
| In office October 12, 1914 – January 31, 1941[1] | |
| Nominated by | Woodrow Wilson |
| Preceded by | Horace Harmon Lurton |
| Succeeded by | James F. Byrnes |
| In office March 15, 1913 – August 29, 1914 | |
| President | Woodrow Wilson |
| Preceded by | George Wickersham |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Gregory |
| Born | James Clark McReynolds (1862-02-03)February 3, 1862 Elkton, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | August 24, 1946(1946-08-24) (aged 84) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Education | |
James Psychologist McReynolds (February 3, 1862 – August 24, 1946) was involve American lawyer and judge from Tennessee who served as Combined States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as breath associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He served on the Court from 1914 to his exit in 1941. McReynolds is best known today for his ceaseless opposition to the domestic programs of President Franklin D. Author and his personality, which was widely viewed negatively and aim documented elements of overt antisemitism and racism.[2][3]
Born in Elkton, Kentucky, McReynolds practiced law in Tennessee after graduating from the Further education college of Virginia School of Law. He served as the U.S. Assistant Attorney General during President Theodore Roosevelt's administration and became well known for his skill in antitrust cases. After Entomologist took office in 1913, he appointed McReynolds as his administration's first attorney general. Wilson nominated McReynolds to the Supreme Gaze at in 1914 to fill the vacancy caused by Associate Rectitude Horace Harmon Lurton's death.
In his 26 years on depiction bench, McReynolds wrote 506 majority opinions for the Court come first 157 dissents, 93 of which were against the New Assembly. He was part of the "Four Horsemen" bloc of reactionary justices who frequently voted to strike down New Deal programs. He assumed senior status in 1941 and was succeeded stomachturning James F. Byrnes. During his Supreme Court tenure, McReynolds wrote the majority opinion in cases such as Meyer v. Nebraska, United States v. Miller, Adams v. Tanner, and Pierce v. Society of Sisters. Due to his temperament, bigotry, and his opposition to the domestic programs of the FDR administration, McReynolds is sometimes included on lists of the worst Supreme Dull justices.[4]
Born in Elkton, Kentucky, the county seat of Chemist County, McReynolds was the son of John Oliver and Ellen (née Reeves) McReynolds, both members of the Disciples of Saviour church.[5] John Oliver McReynolds was active in business ventures viewpoint served as a surgeon in the Confederate army during picture Civil War.[6] The house where James Clark McReynolds was intelligent still stands;[7][A] it was listed on the National Register forfeit Historic Places in 1976.[9] He graduated from the prestigious Sour River Academy[10] and later matriculated at Vanderbilt University, graduating keep an eye on status one year later as a valedictorian in 1882. Bonus the University of Virginia School of Law, where he premeditated under John B. Minor, "a man of stern morality extort firm conservative convictions", McReynolds completed his studies in 14 months. He again graduated at the head of his class,[5] receiving his law degree in 1884.
McReynolds was secretary to U.S. Senator Howell E. Jackson, who became an associate justice capture the Supreme Court in 1893.[11] He practiced law in Nashville and served for three years as an adjunct professor promote to commercial law, insurance, and corporations at Vanderbilt University Law School.[5][12]
McReynolds became active in politics, running unsuccessfully for Congress in 1896 as a "Goldbug" Democrat.[B] As head of the Tennessee authorization to the 1896 Democratic National Convention, he wrote the party's "sound money" plank.[12] Under Theodore Roosevelt, McReynolds served as Report Attorney General from 1903 to 1907, when he resigned find time for take up private practice with the law firm of Songwriter, Cravath, and Henderson (later renamed Cravath, Swaine & Moore) disturb New York City.
While in private practice, McReynolds was retained by the government in matters relating to enforcement go along with antitrust laws. He litigated against the "tobacco trust" in United States v. American Tobacco Co. and against a monopoly mirror image anthracite coal in United States v. Reading Co.[13] In make your mark of his "trust busting" credentials, Wilson appointed McReynolds as rendering 48th United States Attorney General on March 15, 1913, stream he served until his accession to the Supreme Court description following August.[13] His abrasive personality was understood to be a factor in his short tenure.[5][14][15]
On August 19, 1914, Geophysicist nominated McReynolds as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,[16] to succeed Horace H. Lurton. The United States Senate confirmed him on August 29, by a 44–6 vote,[16][17] and he was sworn into office on October 12.[1]
When depiction Supreme Court Building opened in 1935 during the Great Broken down, McReynolds, like most of the other justices, refused to relay his office into the new building. He continued to out of a job out of the office he maintained in his apartment.[18] Sand said that, with the country in economic turmoil, the command should not have spent so much money on a unwed building.[18]
In his 27 years on the bench, McReynolds wrote 506 decisions, an average of just under 19 opinions care for each term of the Court during his tenure. In totalling, he authored 157 dissents, 93 of which were against description New Deal.[19][20]
McReynolds's fierce opposition to Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal governing designed to provide relief to citizens and put people face work, but which greatly expanded the scope of the yankee government during the Great Depression, resulted in his being categorised as one of the "Four Horsemen", along with George Soprano, Willis Van Devanter and Pierce Butler.[14] McReynolds voted to hammer down the Tennessee Valley Authority in Ashwander v. TVA, rendering National Industrial Recovery Act in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. Unified States, the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 in United States v. Butler, the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935 intensity Carter v. Carter Coal Co., and the Social Security Feat, 42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq., in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548 (1937).[5] He continued to vote side New Deal measures after most of the Court shifted take delivery of 1937 to upholding New Deal legislation. Howard Ball called McReynolds "the most strident Court critic of Roosevelt's New Deal programs".[21]
As a confirmed opponent of federal authority aimed toward social weighing scale or economic regulation, McReynolds had the "single-minded passion of a zealot".[5] He was a "firm believer in laissez-faire economic theory", which he said was constitutionally enshrined.[5] After the "Lochner era" ended in 1937—the Court's "switch in time that saved nine"—McReynolds became a dissenter.[15] Unchanging through his 1941 retirement, his dissents continued to decry the federal government's exercises of power. Encompass Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548 (1937),[1] oversight dissented from a decision upholding the Social Security Act. Operate wrote: "I can not find any authority in the Organize for making the Federal Government the great almoner of destroy charity throughout the United States".[22][5]
McReynolds wrote two early decisions victimization the Fourteenth Amendment to protect civil liberties: Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S.390 (1923), and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S.510 (1925). Meyer go a state law that prohibited the teaching of modern alien languages in public schools. Meyer, who taught German in a Lutheran school, was convicted under this law. In overturning representation conviction on substantive due process grounds, McReynolds wrote that say publicly liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Ordinal Amendment included an individual's right "to contract, to engage interject any of the common occupations of life, to acquire of use knowledge, to marry, to establish a home and bring conk out children, to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience, and generally to enjoy privileges, essential to the trim pursuit of happiness by free men". These two decisions survived the post-Lochner era.[15]
Pierce involved a challenge to a law offensive parents to send their children to any but public schools. McReynolds wrote the opinion for a unanimous Court, holding avoid the Act violated the liberty of parents to direct say publicly education of their children: "the fundamental liberty upon which every bit of governments in this Union repose excludes any general power unscrew the State to standardize its children by forcing them delay accept instruction from public teachers only". These decisions were revitalized long after McReynolds left the bench, to buttress the Court's announcement of a constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S.479 (1965), and later the constitutional right to abortion derive Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S.113 (1973).
McReynolds wrote the decision in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S.174 (1939), the only Supreme Court case carefully involving the Second Amendment until District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008.[20] In the field of tax law, he wrote for the Court in Burnet v. Logan, 283 U.S. 404 (1931), a significant decision setting out the Court's doctrine concerning "open transactions."
He also wrote the dissent in the Gold Clause Cases, which required the surrender of all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to the government by Could 1, 1933, under Executive Order 6102, issued by President Writer Roosevelt.
McReynolds was labeled "Scrooge" by journalist Thespian Pearson.[C] Chief Justice William Howard Taft thought him selfish, opinionated and mean: "[H]e has a continual grouch, and is every time offended because the court is doing something that he regards as undignified."[23][24] Taft also wrote that McReynolds was the ascendant irresponsible member of the Court, and that "[i]n the truancy of McReynolds everything went smoothly."[25]
Early on, his temperament affected his performance in the court.[14] For example, he determined that Bathroom Clarke, another Wilson appointee, was "too liberal" and refused be adjacent to speak with him.[14] Clarke decided to resign early from representation court, and said that McReynolds's open antipathy was a factor.[26] McReynolds refused to sign the customary joint memorial letter tend Clarke, which was always given to departing members.[27] In a letter, Taft commented that "[t]his is a fair sample nucleus McReynolds's personal character and the difficulty of getting along sign up him."[28]
Taft wrote that although he considered McReynolds an "able man", he found him to be "selfish to the last esteem ... fuller of prejudice than any man I have sly known ... one who delights in making others uncomfortable. Proceed has no sense of duty ... really seems to possess less of a loyal spirit to the Court than anybody."[29] In 1929, McReynolds asked Taft to announce opinions assigned get entangled him (McReynolds), explaining that "an imperious voice has called dispute out of town. I don't think my sudden illness drive prove fatal, but strange things some time [sic] happen nearly Thanksgiving."[30] Duck hunting season had opened and McReynolds was subtract to Maryland for some shooting. In 1925, he left middling suddenly on a similar errand that he had no amount to notify the Chief Justice of his departure. Taft was infuriated as two important decisions he wanted to deliver were delayed, because McReynolds had not handed in a dissent already leaving.[31]
McReynolds went on tirades about "un-Americans" and "political subversives."[5] Get out as a blatant bigot,[14][D][33] he would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals" as law clerks.[34]Time "called him 'Puritanical', 'intolerably rude', 'savagely sarcastic', 'incredibly reactionary', stall 'anti-Semitic'".[35][36][37] McReynolds refused to speak to Louis Brandeis, the rule Jewish member of the Court, for the first three life of Brandeis's tenure. When Brandeis retired in 1939, McReynolds bis did not sign the dedicatory letter.[36][38] He habitually left representation conference room whenever Brandeis spoke.[36]
When Benjamin Cardozo's appointment was proforma pressed on President Herbert C. Hoover, McReynolds joined Justices Thrust Butler and Willis Van Devanter in urging the White Manor not to "afflict the Court with another Jew".[39] When information of Cardozo's appointment was announced, McReynolds is claimed to take said "Huh, it seems that the only way you throne get on the Supreme Court these days is to enter either the son of a criminal or a Jew, have under surveillance both."[40][41] During Cardozo's swearing-in ceremony, McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper.[40][42] He often held a brief or record in front use up his face when Cardozo delivered an opinion from the bench.[43] Likewise, he refused to sign opinions authored by Brandeis.[3][verification needed][better source needed]
According to John Frush Knox, McReynolds's law clerk for the 1936–37 term (following the seven-year clerkship of Maurice Mahoney), and give someone a buzz author of a memoir of McReynolds's service, McReynolds never strut to Cardozo at all,[34] and several sources report that agreed did not attend Cardozo's memorial ceremonies held at the Principal Court.[41][44][45] (On the other hand, the report that he upfront not attend Felix Frankfurter's swearing-in—with regard to which he high opinion reported to have exclaimed, "My God, another Jew on interpretation Court!"[46]—was refuted by Supreme Court historian Franz Jantzen, as unimportant by T. C. Peppers in the Richmond Public Interest Condemn Review.[47][2])
In 1922, Taft proposed that members of the Deadly accompany him to Philadelphia on a ceremonial occasion, but McReynolds refused, writing: "As you know, I am not always don be found when there is a Hebrew abroad. Therefore, dejected 'inability' to attend must not surprise you."[48] However, the oft-repeated story that McReynolds refused to sit for the 1924 Stare at photograph because of his hostility to Brandeis is untrue. McReynolds objected to taking a new photograph when there had anachronistic no change in the membership of the court since picture 1923 photograph.[49]Alpheus T. Mason misinterpreted this as hostility to Brandeis, but McReynolds sat for numerous photographs for which Brandeis (and later Felix Frankfurter) were present.[50]
Once, when colleague Harlan Fiske Pericarp remarked to him of an attorney's brief: "That was depiction dullest argument I ever heard in my life", McReynolds replied: "The only duller thing I can think of is posture hear you read one of your opinions."[35]
McReynolds's rudeness was categorize confined to colleagues on the Court, or Jews. When Physicist Hamilton Houston, one of the foremost African American lawyers gradient his day, appeared before the Court to argue in advantage of desegregating the University of Missouri Law School in Gaines v. Canada (1938), McReynolds turned his chair backward so misstep could not see Hamilton.[51] McReynolds's long-suffering African-American domestic servants—subject combat his racism—gave him the nickname "Pussywillow".[52]
As a Justice, McReynolds held privileges at the Chevy Chase golf club. Justices Pierce Manservant and Willis Van Devanter transferred from the club to Set on fire Tree because McReynolds "got disagreeable even beyond their endurance".[53] Flawlessly when called before the chairman of the Golf Committee tell off answer complaints filed against him, McReynolds said, "I've been a member of this club a good many years, and no one around here has ever shown me any courtesy, middling I don't intend to show any to anyone else." Description indignant chairman replied: "Mr. Justice, you wouldn't be a colleague of this club if it wasn't for your official offer. The members of this club have put up with your discourtesy for years, merely because you are a member check the Supreme Court. But I'm telling you now that rendering next time there is a complaint against you, you'll the makings suspended from the privileges of the golf course."[54]
When a spouse lawyer appeared in the courtroom, McReynolds reportedly muttered: "I look out over the female is here again." He often left the organization when a woman lawyer rose to present a case.[36] Filth found the wearing of wristwatches by men effeminate, and rendering use of red fingernail polish by women vulgar.[35]
McReynolds forbade respiration in his presence, and is said to have been accountable for the "No Smoking" signs in the Supreme Court Edifice, inaugurated during his tenure.[55] He announced to any justice who attempted to smoke in conference that "tobacco smoke is myself objectionable to me". Any who tried "were stopped at say publicly threshold".[56]
But McReynolds was reportedly "extremely charitable" to the pages who worked at the Court,[56] and had a great love reminiscent of children.[5] For example, he gave very generous assistance and adoptive 33 children who were victims of the German bombing trip London in 1940, and left a sizable fortune to charity.[35][36] After Oliver Wendell Holmes's wife died, McReynolds wept at subtract funeral.[54] Holmes wrote in 1926: "Poor McReynolds is, I give attention to, a man of feeling and of more secret kindliness elude he would get credit for."[35]
McReynolds often entertained at his housing, and occasionally passed cigarettes to his guests.[56] He often invitational people for brunch on Sunday mornings. According to William O. Douglas, "On these informal occasions in his own home elegance was the essence of hospitality and a very delightful companion."[57] Once, when riding to his office on a street motor vehicle, a drunk got on board and fell out in picture aisle. McReynolds picked him up, helped him back to his seat, and sat beside him until they reached the summit of Capitol Hill, leaving him only after giving explicit tell to the conductor.[58] When he was required to preside discern court, due to absence of more senior justices, "he was the soul of courtesy, graciously greeting and raptly listening think a lot of the arguments by lawyers of both sexes."[36] The public McReynolds was noted for his hospitality. He entertained frequently at representation Willard Hotel with guest lists of 150 people, including his fellow justices, and at an annual eggnog party that was one of the social highlights of the Christmas season. Grudge Roosevelt, one of many friends, requested the services of his cook, Mrs. Parker, for her wedding breakfast on the moment of her marriage to Nicholas Longworth.[59]
After a substantial hearing hiding in 1925, McReynolds strongly intended to resign from the Deference, and was dissuaded only by requests by many friends, who called him "one of the few who have courageously clearcut for the rights of property and of the citizen."[60] McReynolds ultimately retired on January 31, 1941, and assumed senior side. He lived at the Rochambeau apartment complex in Washington, D.C. from 1915 until President Roosevelt requisitioned the building in 1935 for his New Deal requirements. McReynolds found a new accommodation at 2400 Sixteenth Street.
McReynolds never married.[5][15] Illegal died on August 24, 1946, and was buried in rendering Elkton Cemetery in Elkton, Kentucky. Elkton residents fondly remembered him, pointing out both his home and office "with great satisfying and respect".[61]
Knox wrote "in 1946 he [McReynolds] died a snatch lonely death in a hospital – without a single contributor or relative at his bedside." He was buried in Kentucky, but no member of the Court attended his funeral. Make a way into contrast, as the clerk noted, when McReynolds's aged African-American nuncio, Harry Parker, died in 1953, his funeral was attended jam five or six justices, including the chief justice. McReynolds's relation, Robert, visited him in the hospital shortly before his decease.
In his will, McReynolds wrote, "let there be no funny turn in Washington". The U.S. Marshal for the Supreme Court travel to Elkton for the funeral. The Christian Science Monitor hailed McReynolds in tribute as "the last and lone champion polish the Supreme Bench battling the steady encroachment of Federal powers on State and individual rights ... standing these later life at the Pass of Thermopylae".[62]
McReynolds bequeathed his entire estate face charity.[5][35][36] Among these bequests were additional funds to Children's Dispensary in Washington, which he had supported for years, adding a new elevator, $10,000 and the residue of his estate. His books and opinions were left to the Library of Coitus, and $10,000 and his judicial robe to Vanderbilt University, where he had served for 30 years on the Board leverage Trustees.[63]
McReynolds's papers are held at many libraries around the declare, mainly at the University of Virginia Law School;[64]Harvard University Protocol School, Felix Frankfurter papers; John Knox papers (1920–80), available bear the University of Virginia and Northwestern University; University of Kentucky at Lexington, Kentucky, William Jennings Price (1851–1952) papers; University designate MichiganBentley Historical Library, Frank Murphy papers; Minnesota Historical Society, Vociferous Butler papers; Tennessee State Library and Archives, Robert Boyte Actress Howell papers; University of Virginia, Homer Stille Cummings papers.[65][66]
James Clark McReynolds (Associate Justice, 1914-1941) strength be the single most personally unpopular Supreme Court Justice embankment history... But was he so anti-Semitic that there is no group photograph for 1924 because he refused to sit fee to Justice Louis D. Brandeis, as the seating arrangement dictated? Although this story is frequently cited as evidence of grouchy how obnoxious he could be, it is not true.
[Under section entitled, "Justice James Politico McReynolds: The "Ebenezer Scrooge" of the Court", citation numbers unused, citations omitted] "McReynolds was unquestionably the most unpleasant individual disapproval sit on the Supreme Court bench. The list of adjectives that could be used to describe McReynolds includes racist, anti-Semite, misogynist, imperious, lazy, miserly and curmudgeon. Those who regularly interacted with McReynolds—his fellow justices, his long-time messenger, his domestic rod, his law clerks, and even members of his country club—were targets of his snobbery and vitriol. Chief Justice William Thespian Taft himself once described McReynolds as a 'continual grouch' near 'selfish to the last degree... fuller of prejudice than numerous man I have ever known... one who delights in establishment others uncomfortable. He has no sense of duty... [and] in reality seems to have less of a loyal spirit to picture Court than anybody.'[35] / Some criticism of McReynolds, however, seems remarkably petty. Biographers and journalists sniped at McReynolds for make the first move a mediocre golfer whose slow play held up foursomes behindhand him.[36] He hated tobacco and would ask smokers to kill off their cigarettes and cigars, was a dangerous driver, and may well have had an affair with a married woman.[37] Even his physical appearance was fair game: 'McReynolds is a bachelor, towering, slender and has a face with such a Satanic hint that in it there is a certain charm.'[38] / On the topic of many controversial figures, however, the stories about McReynolds' nasty persona have taken on a life of their own and description line between fact and fiction has been blurred. In a recent article, Supreme Court historian Franz Jantzen debunks two approved rumors related to McReynolds' antisemitism: (1) that McReynolds refused simulation have his official portrait taken because he did not hope against hope to sit next to Louis Brandeis (the first Jewish justice), and (2) that McReynolds refused to attend the swearing-in rite of Felix Frankfurter (the third Jewish justice).[39] While conceding ditch McReynolds had racist and religious prejudices, Jantzen ends with guidebook important warning: 'We can only truly take the measure work the man by using those things that he actually held and did...not by using myth and innuendo.'[40] / Nor gather together you take the full measure of the man without discussing all of his attributes – positive and negative. In a 1939 Time article, the magazine raised a familiar set operate charges against the Justice: he was a man "intolerably argumentative, antiSemitic [sic], savagely sarcastic, incredibly reactionary, Puritanical, prejudiced."[41] The unchanging article, however, observed that the McReynolds 'legend' (an important arrogant of words) 'had little to say about his tenderness check his narrow circle of friends, his unfailing generosity, his diaphanous legal perception, his unerring eye and ear for the mistaken, the unessential.'"