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Constitutional Law in 1934–35
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
Extract
In the 1934 term, the Supreme Court came to grips with some of the major constitutional problems of the New Deal and rendered decisions more intimately affecting our national life than any since the Dred Scott case of 1857. The great slavery decision rocked the nation to its foundations by its futile attempt to solve a problem insoluble by any means save war. The important constitutional decisions of the Reconstruction period in their immediate consequences affected mainly the South, and it will be remembered that by a series of side-steppings, some involuntary and some not, the Supreme Court escaped the necessity of passing squarely upon the validity of the basic program of Reconstruction as embodied in the act of 1867. Forty years ago, in its 1894 term, the Court incurred much unpopularity by three decisions of major significance. It invalidated the Income Tax Act passed in fulfillment of Democratic campaign pledges; it emasculated, temporarily at least, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by holding it inapplicable to a most obvious and vicious monopoly—the sugar trust; and it incurred the hostility of organized labor by sustaining the issuance by a federal court of a labor injunction. None of these decisions was, however, nor were all of them together, as far-reaching in significance as those handed down in the last term of Court.
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1936
References
1 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 Howard 393, 1857.
2 The Court refused to take jurisdiction in Mississippi v. Johnson, 4 Wallace 475, 1867, and Georgia v. Stanton, 6 Wallace 50, 1867; in Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wallace 506, 1869, the statute giving the Court jurisdiction was repealed by Congress after the McCardle case, involving the validity of the Reconstruction Act, had been argued.
3 Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., 158 U.S. 601, 1895.
4 United States v. E. C. Knight Co., 158 U.S. 1, 1895.
5 In re Debs, 156. U.S. 564, 1895.
6 Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332, 1917.
7 Corwin, E. S., The Twilight of the Supreme Court, p. 145Google Scholar.
8 293 U.S. 388, 1935.
9 The Code for the Petroleum Industry was promulgated on August 19, 1933. On September 13, 1933, the President issued an executive order modifying certain of its provisions. In this order, perhaps the most vital paragraph of the Code, that prohibiting production of oil in excess of state quotas, was inadvertently omitted, and not restored until September 25, 1933, when the omission seems to have been first discovered. The acts in violation of the Code charged against the Panama Refining Company were committed during this two-week period, although the fact that there were no effective code provisions in existence was unknown to the government counsel, the defendant, or the court when the action was tried in the lower court. Interestingly enough, in Locke v. United States, 75 Fed. Rep. (2d) 157, 1935, an injunction issued by the lower court restraining Locke from violating the non-existent provision of the Code was violated and Locke was cited for contempt. The Circuit Court of Appeals, in full knowledge of all the facts, sustained the judgment for contempt, and the Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari to review the case. Thus one may be in contempt for disobeying a court order restraining one from violating a law which does not exist.
10 This part of Title I of the Act reads: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress to remove obstructions to the free flow of interstate commerce and foreign commerce which tend to diminish the amount thereof; and to provide for the general welfare by promoting the organization of industry for the purpose of coöperative action among trade groups, to induce and maintain united action of labor and management under adequate governmental sanctions and supervision, to eliminate unfair competitive practices, to promote the fullest possible utilization of the present productive capacity of industries, to avoid undue restriction of production (except as may be temporarily required), to increase the consumption of industrial and agricultural products by increasing purchasing power, to reduce and relieve unemployment, to improve standards of labor, and otherwise to rehabilitate industry and to conserve natural resources.”
11 143 U.S. 649, 1892.
12 192 U.S. 470, 1904.
13 276 U.S. 394, 1928.
14 289 U.S. 266, 1933.
15 295 U.S. 495, 1935.
16 295 U.S. 495, 1935.
17 See note 10, supra.
18 293 U.S. 388, 1935.
19 Houston, E. & W. Texas Ry. Co. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342, 1914.
20 295 U.S. 330, 1935.
21 Second Employers' Liability Cases, 223 U.S. 1, 1912.
22 (See next page.)
22 In the fall of 1934, the Secretary of the Interior caused the commencement of work on the Parker Dam in the main stream of the Colorado River between Arizona and California. The work was to be done under a contract between the federal government and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California under which the District paid the cost of the dam and was to receive half the power rights and certain rights of water diversion. Arizona attacked the validity of the whole proceeding as an invasion of her rights in the river, and the governor of the state ordered out the militia to prevent construction operations by the federal authorities. United States v. Arizona, 295 U.S. 174, 1935, is an original suit by the United States for an injunction to restrain state interference with the construction. A unanimous Court held that the building of the dam had not been properly authorized and refused to issue the injunction. An examination of the pertinent legislation shows that dams may be built in navigable rivers only after specific authorization by Congress following approval by the President and the Chief of Engineers. The government was unable to show any such authorization, and its effort to imply the same from collateral legislation was rejected. Thus Arizona, hopelessly defeated in her attempt to prevent the construction of Boulder Dam, 150 miles up the river, has won a temporary victory at least in this case. The Parker Dam can, of course, be legalized at any time by act of Congress.
23 294 U.S. 240, 1935.
24 7 Wallace 229, 1869.
25 12 Wallace 457, 1871.
26 218 U.S. 302, 1910.
27 294 U.S. 330, 1935.
28 294 U.S. 317, 1935.
29 293 U.S. 214, 1934.
30 294 U.S. 199, 1935.
31 294 U.S. 125, 1935.
32 293 U.S. 76, 1934.
33 295 U.S. 602, 1935. Also cited as Humphrey's Executor v. United States.
34 272 U.S. 52, 1926.
35 295 U.S. 463, 1935.
36 293 U.S. 21, 1934.
37 In Gillis v. California, 293 U.S. 62, 1934, it is held that state laws requiring those selling gasoline in the state to take out licenses and provide sureties are applicable to oil companies being operated by receivers appointed by the federal courts. Congress has by statute provided that receivers shall operate in accordance with valid state laws, and there is no improper invasion of judicial power involved in subjecting the receivers to the regulations here involved.
38 295 U.S. 555, 1935.
39 290 U.S. 398, 1934. For comment, see this Review, vol. 29, p. 54.
40 294 U.S. 648, 1935.
41 In Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 1935, it is held that the Seventh Amendment guaranteeing jury trial in civil cases cannot be so interpreted as to permit afederal district judge to make the issuance of an order denying a new trial in a damage action conditional upon the consent of the petitioner to an increase in the amount of damages awarded by the verdict of the jury. This seems to have been forbidden by the common law at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, although the converse practice of making such a denial of retrial conditional upon consent to a decrease in the amount of the verdict was not unknown. Four justices speaking through Mr. Justice Stone, dissented.
42 294 U.S. 405, 1935.
43 294 U.S. 613, 1935.
44 294 U.S. 608, 1935.
45 294 U.S. 532, 1935.
46 293 U.S. 163, 1934.
47 293 U.S. 245, 1934.
48 245 U.S. 366, 1918.
49 279 U.S. 644, 1929. For comment, see this Review, vol. 24, p. 86.
50 283 U.S. 605, 1931. For comment, see this Review, vol. 26, p. 266.
51 294 U.S. 550, 1935.
52 294 U.S. 87, 1935.
53 29 3 U.S. 112, 1934.
54 A complicated question of state jurisdiction to tax is decided in Senior v. Braden, 295 U.S. 422, 1935, which denies the state the right to tax land trust certificates representing interests in land situated outside the state, or situated within the state when it is already taxed according to value.
55 294 U.S. 63 and 79, 1935.
56 295 U.S. 662, 1935.
57 Another case involving the problem of the valuation of railroad property is Rowley v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co., 293 U.S. 102, 1934.
58 294 U.S. 103, 1935.
59 294 U.S. 587, 1935.
60 287 U.S. 45, 1932. For comment, see this Review, vol. 28, p. 57.
61 294 U.S. 600, 1935.
62 295 U.S. 394, 1935.
63 256 U.S. 232, 1921.
64 273 U.S. 536, 1927.
65 286 U.S. 73, 1932. For comment, see this Review, vol. 27, p. 54.
66 294 U.S. 45, 1935.
67 294 U.S. 511, 1935.
68 294 U.S. 169, 1935.
69 8 Wallace 123, 1869.
70 294 U.S. 83, 1935.
71 293 U.S. 15, 1934.
72 294 U.S. 384, 1935.
73 295 U.S. 229, 1935.
74 295 U.S. 56, 1935.
75 295 U.S. 64, 1935.