The Taft Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy

by Peter G. Renstrom

Overview

An authoritative survey of the Taft Court, which served from 1921 to 1929, and the impact it had on the U.S. legal system, social order, economics, and politics.

William Howard Taft's experience in the executive branch gave him a unique perspective on the court's work. He initiated judicial reform and was the prime mover behind the Judiciary Act of 1925, which gave the court wide latitude to accept cases based on their importance to the nation.

The Taft Court decided about 1,600 cases during its nine terms. This book examines the "aggregate" personality of the court through discussions of individual voting characteristics, bloc alignments, and other patterned behavior. It also charts the strengths and weaknesses of the rulings and demonstrates Taft's penchant for increasing the impact of decisions by pursuing consensus among the justices, two of whom were his own appointees when he served as president.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781576072806
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/12/2003
Series:	ABC-CLIO Supreme Court Handbooks
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Peter G. Renstrom is professor of political science at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI.

Table of Contents

	Series Foreword	ix
	Preface	xi
Part 1	Justices, Rulings, and Legacy	1
1	The Taft Court and the Period	3
	Woodrow Wilson and World War I	3
	The Postwar Period	5
	Prelude to Normalcy	7
	The 1920 Election: The Triumph of Conservative Republicanism	10
	The Harding Presidency and Normalcy	12
	The Scandals	17
	Calvin Coolidge	19
	The 1924 Presidential Election: The Democratic Divide and the Progressive Demise	21
	Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression	22
	Assembling the Taft Court	25
	Taft as Chief Justice	35
	References and Further Reading	36
2	The Justices	39
	The William McKinley Appointment	40
	The Theodore Roosevelt Appointments	44
	The William H. Taft Appointments	52
	The Woodrow Wilson Appointments	59
	The Warren Harding Appointments	72
	The Calvin Coolidge Appointment	89
	References and Further Reading	94
3	Significant Decisions	97
	Institutional Rulings	99
	Congress and Legislative Power	106
	Courts and Judicial Power	110
	Federal Commerce Power	115
	Sherman Act	122
	Labor and Antitrust	125
	Federal Taxing Power	127
	State Taxation, Rate Making, and Commerce	129
	Intergovernmental Tax Immunity	131
	State Economic Regulation: Substantive Due Process	132
	National Prohibition	145
	Individual Rights	149
	The Incorporation Question	150
	The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment	151
	Selected First Amendment Rulings	155
	Rights of the Accused	169
	Equal Protection of the Law and Voting Rights	177
	References and Further Reading	181
4	Legacy and Impact	183
	Doctrinal Legacy: Short and Long Term	190
	The Taft Court Takings Clause and Zoning	196
	Federal Institutional Authority	198
	Conclusion	212
	References and Further Reading	213
Part 2	Reference Materials	215
	Key People, Laws, and Events	217
Appendix	Term-by-Term Statistics	263
	Chronology	273
	Table of Cases	287
	Glossary	293
	Annotated Bibliography	307
	Index	319
	About the Author	333

Editorial Reviews

This book is a good read and a solid source of information . . . Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals.” —African Studies

“This book is a mandatory purrchase for every law school library and academic libraries . . . It is also recommended for medium-and large-sized public libraries.” —American Reference Books Annual

From the Publisher