A study of the Supreme Court tenure of the only US president to serve as chief justice provides a unique perspective on 1920s America. In this book, Jonathan Lurie offers a comprehensive examination of the Supreme Court tenure of the only person to have held the offices of president of the United States and chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. William Howard Taft joined the Court during the Jazz Age and the era of prohibition, a period of disillusion and retreat from the idealism reflected during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency. Lurie considers how conservative trends at this time were reflected in key decisions of Taft’s court. Although Taft was considered an undistinguished chief executive, such a characterization cannot be applied to his tenure as chief justice. Lurie demonstrates that Taft’s leadership on this tribunal, matched by his productive relations with Congress, in effect created the modern Supreme Court. Furthermore he draws on the unpublished letters Taft wrote to his three children, Robert, Helen, and Charles, generally once a week. His missives contain an intriguing mixture of family news, insights concerning contemporaneous political issues, and occasional commentary on his fellow justices and cases under consideration. Lurie structures his study in parallel with the eight full terms in which Taft occupied the center seat, examining key decisions while avoiding legal jargon wherever possible. The high point of Taft’s chief justiceship was the period from 1921 to 1925. The second part of his tenure was marked by slow decline as his health worsened with each passing year. By 1930 he was forced to resign, and his death soon followed. In an epilogue Lurie explains why Taft is still regarded as an outstanding chief justice—if not a great jurist—and why this distinction is important. “Conflicts from the early twentieth century endure, and Lurie gives us old and new perspectives from which to understand a living Constitution.” —Journal of American History

In William Howard Taft’s Constitutional Progressivism Kevin J. Burns makes a compelling case that Taft’s devotion to the Constitution of 1787 contributed to his progressivism. In contrast to the majority of scholarship, which has viewed Taft as a reactionary conservative because of his constitutionalism, Burns explores the ways Taft’s commitment to both the Constitution and progressivism drove his political career and the decisions he made as president and chief justice. Taft saw the Constitution playing a positive role in American political life, recognizing that it created a national government strong enough to enact broad progressive reforms. In reevaluating Taft’s career, Burns highlights how Taft rejected the “laisser [sic] faire school,” which taught that “the Government ought to do nothing but run a police force.” Recognizing that the massive industrial changes following the Civil War had created a plethora of socioeconomic ills, Taft worked to expand the national government’s initiatives in the fields of trust-busting, land conservation, tariff reform, railroad regulation, and worker safety law. Burns offers a fuller understanding of Taft and his political project by emphasizing Taft’s belief that the Constitution could play a constructive role in American political life by empowering the government to act and by undergirding and protecting the reform legislation the government implemented. Moreover, Taft recognized that if the Constitution could come to the aid of progressivism, political reform might also redound to the benefit of the Constitution by showing its continued relevance and workability in modern America. Although Taft’s efforts to promote significant policy-level reforms attest to his progressivism, his major contribution to American political thought is his understanding of the US Constitution as a fundamental law, not a policy-oriented document. In many ways Taft can be thought of as an originalist, yet his originalism was marked by a belief in robust national powers. Taft’s constitutionalism remains relevant because while his principles seem foreign to modern legal discourse, his constitutional vision offers an alternative to contemporary political divisions by combining political progressivism-liberalism with constitutional conservatism.

This work will serve as the authoritative reference text on the Supreme Court during the period of 1921 to 1930, when William Howard Taft was Chief Justice. It will become a point of common reference across multiple disciplines, including history, law, and political science.

Presents an alphabetical listing of Supreme Court justices with a short biography on each person.

This book is a collection of comprehensive background essays coupled with carefully edited Supreme Court case excerpts designed to explore constitutional law and the role of the Supreme Court in its development and interpretation. Well-grounded in both theory and politics, the book endeavors to heighten students’ understanding of this critical part of the American political system. NEW TO THE 19th EDITION • An account of the recent Supreme Court transitions, including the Biden Court commission, the appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the heightened political and ethical difficulties facing the Court. • Five new cases carefully edited and excerpted, including Minor v. Happersett (1875) on gender and voting rights, Trump v. Anderson (2024) on access to the ballot, Carson v. Makin (2022) on religious freedom, New York Rifle & Pistol Assn. v. Bruen (2023) on Second Amendment rights, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2023) on abortion rights, and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, together with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina on affirmative action. • Twenty-one new cases discussed in chapter essays. • Tips on reading a Supreme Court decision remains as a box in Chapter One.

An instant New York Times bestseller: An acclaimed legal scholar’s “important” (New York Times) and “fascinating” (Economist) exposé of how the Supreme Court uses unsigned and unexplained orders to change the law behind closed doors. The Supreme Court has always had the authority to issue emergency rulings in exceptional circumstances. But since 2017, the Court has dramatically expanded its use of the behind-the-scenes “shadow docket,” regularly making decisions that affect millions of Americans without public hearings and without explanation, through cryptic late-night rulings that leave lawyers—and citizens—scrambling. The Court’s conservative majority has used the shadow docket to green-light restrictive voting laws and bans on abortion, and to curtail immigration and COVID vaccine mandates. But Americans of all political stripes should be worried about what the shadow docket portends for the rule of law, argues Supreme Court expert Stephen Vladeck. In this rigorous yet accessible book, he issues an urgent call to bring the Court back into the light.

The Dark Past offers a historical overview and interpretive guide to all the major cases decided by US Supreme Court that have affected the freedom and rights of Black Americans since 1800. It lends coherence to what could otherwise be a disjointed chronicle of cases and connects the events of the past to the current era of racial inequality.

Covers the people, court cases, historical events, and terms relating to one of the most studied political documents in schools across the country, the United States Constitution.

This comprehensive, alphabetical encyclopedia of more than 300 easy-to-read entries is the first resource for anyone who wants reliable information or background material on the significant decisions of the Supreme Court, the history of the Court, the justices (every justice is profiled), the powers of the Court, and how the institution has evolved from its origins to the present. Outstanding Academic Book

The Supreme Court A to Z offers accessible information about the Supreme Court, including its history, traditions, organization, dynamics, and personalities. The entries in The Supreme Court A to Z are arranged alphabetically and are extensively cross-referenced to related information. This volume also has a detailed index, reference materials on Supreme Court nominations, a seat chart of the justices, the U.S. Constitution, online sources of decisions, and a bibliography to help simplify research. The fifth edition of The Supreme Court A to Z has been thoroughly updated to incorporate coverage of significant new cases and recent changes on the bench and includes more than 350 alphabetized entries. Presented in an engaging reader-friendly design, this edition includes: - Biographies of recently appointed Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor - Updated entries on key issues and concepts, including abortion, campaigns and elections, civil rights, class action, due process, freedom of the press, retired justices, reapportionment and redistricting, school desegregation, and war powers - New entries on criminal law and media and the court, which highlights the Court's online presence - This timely resource also includes updated seat charts of the justices, online sources for finding decisions, and a selected bibliography The Supreme Court A to Z is part of CQ Press's five-volume American Government A to Z series.