The Return to Normalcy

In the wake of World War I, the optimism and idealism of the Progressive Era gave way to a sense of complacency. Warren Harding was elected president by promising the nation a return to normalcy. “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing,” he declared. “[N]ot nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.” His administration was marked by corruption, cronyism, and scandal. His successor, Calvin Coolidge, restored to the office of the president the integrity and dignity it had lost under the Harding administration.

Repeal of Prohibition

The “Noble Experiment” of Prohibition proved an abject failure. Rather than eliminating the consumption of alcohol, the ban turned drinking into a fashionable form of social protest. In addition, Prohibition proved a boon to organized crime, which used the proceeds of smuggling to bribe public officials and finance other illegal enterprises. Prohibition was finally repealed in 1933 with the passage of the Twentieth Amendment.

New Justices Appointed to the Court

When Chief Justice White died, former president William Howard Taft was appointed to succeed him. His appointment marked a turning point for the court as it moved away from the liberalism of the Progressive Era to a more conservative stance.

Judges’ Bill of 1925

The Judges’ Bill of 1925 gave the Supreme Court almost complete control over its appellate functions. All appeals thereafter had to be brought through a petition for a writ of certiorari. The Court could grant or deny the writ without ruling on the merits of the case. In order to grant a writ of certiorari, four of the nine justices had to vote in favor of it.

The Taft Court

As chief justice, Taft favored strict construction of the Constitution. He believed that the Court’s proper role was not to rationalize social experiments, but to keep government from overstepping the bounds set by the framers. In Hammer v. Dagenhart, the Court held that the Child Labor Act of 1916 was an unconstitutional encroachment upon powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment. In Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Company the Court held that the federal government could not do by taxation what it could not do through express prohibition. Taxes could not be used as a penalty for regulatory purposes.

Organized Labor and the Court

The Clayton Act, which excluded organized labor from the provisions of federal antitrust statutes, was hailed as a major victory for labor unions. The Taft Court interpreted the act narrowly, upholding the labor injunction in Duplex Printing Company v. Deering and Truax v. Corrigan. The Court was also evenhanded in dealing with unions, ruling in the United Mine Workers and United Leather Workers’ Union cases that the employers in question had not proven the unions civilly liable under the Sherman Act.

The Taft Court and Public Regulation

The Taft Court invalidated a number of federal and state measures establishing minimum wages and labor standards. The Court ignored or overruled precedents of the Progressive Era in favor of the absolute protection of property rights. But where personal liberty was in question, the Court was more tolerant of state regulation. In Buck v. Bell the Court upheld a Virginia statute providing for compulsory sterilization of inmates at state-supported institutions.

Federal Commerce Power

The commerce clause jurisprudence of the Taft court is one of its most enduring legacies. In Stafford v. Wallace, the Court ruled that the stream of commerce doctrine propounded in Swift and Company v. United States had become “a fixed rule of this court.” Building upon that rule, the Taft Court upheld several federal regulations as legitimate exercises of the commerce power.

The Treaty Power

In Missouri v. Holland, the Court held that the federal government’s treaty powers are not limited by the Tenth Amendment. In theory, any power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment might be taken over by the federal government pursuant to a treaty. The one limitation on the power is that the federal government may not use the treaty power to contravene any of the express prohibitions of the Constitution.

Federal Grants-in-Aid

In Massachusetts v. Mellon, the Court upheld the constitutionality of federal grants-in-aid, through which Congress appropriates money to states for purposes beyond the jurisdiction of the federal government. The holding made possible the expansion of federal power through the funding of state programs.

The Executive Power of Removal

In Myers v. United States the Court ruled once and for all on the constitutionality of the Tenure of Office Act, holding that it was an unconstitutional restraint on the president’s removal power.

Liberty and the Court

The Taft Court built upon the Allgeyer precedent in finding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects individual liberty from certain kinds of government encroachment. While Allgeyer only extended that protection from encroachments upon freedom of contract, the Taft Court extended it to other types of interests, including life and liberty.

Hoover’s Appointments

The Great Depression prompted a political reaction that put President Hoover and congressional Republicans on the defensive. Hoover’s nominations to the Court were hotly contested. In the end, though, Charles Evans Hughes was promoted to the chief justiceship and Owen Roberts and Benjamin Cardozo joined the Court as associate justices.

Extending the Guarantees of the Bill of Rights

The Hughes Court made great progress in incorporating the key guarantees of the Bill of Rights into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The process began with bold rulings on First Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights. The Hughes Court would accomplish on a case-by-case basis what the Chase Court had declined to do outright in the Slaughter-House Cases.