Many opponents of the New Deal hoped that the Supreme Court would declare much of Roosevelt’s legislation unconstitutional. Among other things, opponents were hopeful that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the taking of private property without compensation and due process, would be invoked to limit the expansion of economic regulation. After all, whenever the government imposes controls—for example, by setting minimum wages or maximum prices—the value of someone’s property is reduced. If each such taking must be adjudicated in court and properly compensated, regulation would be severely hampered.
The Supreme Court was deeply divided on the New Deal. As a result, some early New Deal legislation won the Court’s approval; while other New Deal legislation, including its most ambitious initiatives, were struck down. In A. L.A Schechter Poultry Corp. et al. v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court unanimously ruled the National Recovery Act unconstitutional because the law delegated too much arbitrary authority to the executive branch and because it attempted to regulate intrastate commerce. In United States v. Butler (1936), the Agricultural Adjustment Act was ruled unconstitutional on the grounds that it was financed by improper taxes. Buoyed by his landslide victory in 1936, Roosevelt tried to change the Court’s direction by proposing legislation that would permit him to appoint additional justices. Opposition to Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the Court, however, was immediate and widespread, and he suffered one of his few political defeats. Nevertheless, in the end he got what he wanted. The moderates on the Court, perhaps reading the election returns, shifted to the left. Over the next few years, moreover, a number of conservative justices retired permitting Roosevelt to appoint additional liberals. In United States v. Darby (1941), the Court ruled in favor of the Fair Labor Standards Act; in Wickard v. Fillburn (1942) it ruled in favor of the new Agricultural Adjustment Act. Thus, legal doctrines that had stood in the way of federal (and state) control of the economy, such as the idea that the federal government could regulate only what was clearly interstate commerce, and the idea that federal and state governments could not interfere arbitrarily with private contracts, were overturned. The legal path to increased government regulation of the economy had been cleared.
World History
