The Taft Court: Justices, Rulings, and Legacy (ABC-CLIO Supreme Court Handbooks)

350 Pages·2003·1.5 MB·English

by  Peter G. Renstrom

The Taft Court
ABC-CLIO SUPREME COURT HANDBOOKS
The Burger Court, Tinsley E. Yarbrough
The Fuller Court,James W. Ely, Jr.
The Hughes Court,Michael E. Parrish
The Stone Court, Peter G. Renstrom
The Taft Court,Peter G. Renstrom
The Taney Court,Timothy S. Huebner
The Waite Court,Donald Grier Stephenson, Jr.
The Warren Court,Melvin I. Urofsky
Forthcoming:
The Chase Court,Jonathan Lurie
The Jay and Ellsworth Courts,Matthew P. Harrington
The Marshall Court,Robert Lowry Clinton
The Rehnquist Court,Thomas R. Hensley
The Vinson Court,Michal R. Belknap
The White Court,Rebecca S. Shoemaker
Peter G. Renstrom, Series Editor
ABC-CLIO SUPREME COURT HANDBOOKS
The Taft Court
Justices,
Rulings, and
Legacy
Peter G. Renstrom
Santa Barbara, California • Denver, Colorado • Oxford, England
Copyright © 2003 by Peter G. Renstrom
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys-
tem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without
prior permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Renstrom, Peter G., 1943–
The Taft Court : justices, rulings, and legacy / Peter G. Renstrom.
p. cm. — (ABC-CLIO Supreme Court handbooks)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-57607-280-0 (hardcover : alk. paper); ISBN 1-85109-537-3 (e-book)
1. Taft, William H. (William Howard), 1857–1930. 2. United States.
Supreme Court—History—20th century. 3. Constitutional history—United
States. I. Title. II. Series.
KF8742.R483 2003
347.73'26'09—dc21
2003004170
06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABC-CLIO, Inc.
130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911
Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911
This book is printed on acid-free paper I.
Manufactured in the United States of America
To my family:
for providing the opportunity to be a son,
brother, husband, father, and grandfather—
roles I value beyond words

Contents
Series Foreword, ix
Preface,xi
PART ONE
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
vii
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 TWO
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
Series Foreword
T
here is an extensive literature on the U.S. Supreme Court, but it contains dis-
cussion familiar largely to the academic community and the legal profession.
The ABC-CLIO Supreme Court series is designed to have value to the academic
and legal communities also, but each volume is intended as well for the general reader
who does not possess an extensive background on the Court or American constitutional
law. The series is intended to effectively represent each of fourteen periods in the his-
tory of the Supreme Court with each of these fourteen eras defined by the chief justice
beginning with John Jay in 1789. Each Court confronted constitutional and statutory
questions that were of major importance to and influenced by the historical period. The
Court’s decisions were also influenced by the values of each of the individual justices sit-
ting at the time. The issues, the historical period, the justices, and the Supreme Court’s
decisions in the most significant cases will be examined in the volumes of this series.
ABC-CLIO’s Supreme Court series provides scholarly examinations of the Court
as it functioned in different historical periods and with different justices. Each vol-
ume contains information necessary to understand each particular Court and an
interpretative analysis by the author of each Court’s record and legacy. In addition to
representing the major decisions of each Court, institutional linkages are examined
as well—the political connections among the Court, Congress, and the president.
These relationships are important for several reasons. Although the Court retains
some institutional autonomy, all the Court’s justices are selected by a process that
involves the other two branches. Many of the significant decisions of the Court
involve the review of actions of Congress or the president. In addition, the Court fre-
quently depends on the other two branches to secure compliance with its rulings.
The authors of the volumes in the ABC-CLIO series were selected with great care.
Each author has worked extensively with the Court, the period, and the personalities
about which he or she has written. ABC-CLIO wanted each of the volumes to examine
several common themes, and each author agreed to work within certain guidelines.
Each author was free, however, to develop the content of each volume, and many of the
volumes advance new or distinctive conclusions about the Court under examination.
Each volume contains four substantive chapters. The first chapter will intro-
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