Banner n Manning Pt.2

1. What tension did Banner see during the Civil War?

The Court faced tension between protecting constitutional rights and allowing the government to take emergency measures to preserve the Union. The war forced the justices to consider how much civil liberty could be restricted during a national crisis.

2. How many Justices did Lincoln and Andrew Johnson appoint?

Abraham Lincoln appointed five Supreme Court justices, while Andrew Johnson appointed none. Lincoln's appointments helped reshape the Court during and after the Civil War.

3. The Prize Cases (1863)

The Court upheld Lincoln's blockade of Confederate ports without a formal declaration of war by Congress. It recognized that the president could respond to an existing rebellion with military action.

4. Congressman Vallandigham and Ex parte Vallandigham

Democratic Congressman Clement Vallandigham was arrested for criticizing the Union war effort and was tried by a military commission. The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal because it lacked jurisdiction to review the military commission's decision.

5. Who was John Swett Rock?

John Swett Rock was a Black physician, dentist, lawyer, and abolitionist. In 1865, he became the first Black lawyer admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

6. What happened to the number of Justices in 1869?

Congress fixed the Supreme Court at nine justices in 1869. President Ulysses S. Grant benefited by receiving two appointments to fill the newly established positions.

7. Ex parte Milligan (1866)

Lambdin Milligan, a civilian in Indiana, was tried by a military commission during the Civil War despite the civilian courts remaining open. The Court ruled that civilians could not be tried by military tribunals where ordinary courts were functioning.

8. Hepburn v. Griswold and The Legal Tender Cases

Court ruled that applying paper legal-tender notes to certain preexisting debts was unconstitutional. In The Legal Tender Cases (1871), the Court reversed course and upheld the federal government's authority to make paper money legal tender.

9. Justices and the disputed election of 1876

The disputed presidential election between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden was resolved by an electoral commission, not directly by the Supreme Court. The commission included five Supreme Court justices, who helped decide which disputed electoral votes would count.

10. Justice Lewis Brandeis and religious diversity

Louis Brandeis became the first Jewish Supreme Court justice in 1916. His appointment marked an important step toward greater religious diversity on the Court.

11. Average age of new Justices, 1870–1930

New justices during this period were generally appointed in their early to mid-50s. Most had extensive legal or political experience before joining the Court.

12. What was the “delicate problem” among the Justices?

The justices had to balance their personal relationships and disagreements while maintaining a functioning Court. They needed to cooperate professionally despite differences in their legal philosophies and personalities.

13. Percentage of Justices who served in public office; Robert Taft

Many justices had previously held public office, reflecting the political nature of Supreme Court appointments. William Howard Taft was especially unusual because he had served as both president and chief justice.

14. Rejected nominees and John Parker

The Senate rejected numerous nominees during this period, reflecting political battles over the Court's direction. John J. Parker, nominated by Herbert Hoover in 1930, was rejected after labor organizations and civil rights groups opposed his record and views.

15. Intellectual leaders on the Court

Important intellectual leaders included Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Benjamin Cardozo. They helped shape debates about constitutional interpretation, individual liberty, and government regulation.

16. The “Four Horsemen” and Robert Hale

The Four Horsemen were Justices James McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler. They opposed many New Deal regulations, and legal scholar Robert Hale criticized the Court's tendency to treat existing economic arrangements as natural while restricting government efforts to change them.

17. Courts of Appeals and the Court's caseload

The federal Courts of Appeals were established in 1891 to relieve the Supreme Court's growing workload. They handled many appeals, allowing the Supreme Court to focus more on major legal and constitutional questions.

18. Democratic and Republican sources of conservatism

Republican conservatism often emphasized business interests, property rights, and limits on government regulation. Democratic conservatism could also defend established economic interests and traditional social arrangements, meaning opposition to reform did not belong exclusively to one party.

19. What “project lay in ruins,” and who was partly responsible?

The project of securing equal civil and political rights for Black Americans after the Civil War had largely collapsed. Banner argues that the Supreme Court was partly responsible because it weakened federal civil rights protections and permitted racial segregation.

20. What did U.S. v. Reese, U.S. v. Cruikshank, and U.S. v. Harris gut?

These decisions weakened federal efforts to protect Black citizens against voting discrimination and racial violence. They narrowed Congress's ability to punish private individuals and groups who violated civil rights.

21. Civil Rights Cases (1883)

The Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations. It ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment restricted state action, not discrimination committed by private businesses.

22. State segregation laws versus national resistance

Southern states increasingly passed Jim Crow laws requiring racial segregation, while the federal government had attempted to protect Black Americans after the Civil War. The Supreme Court weakened many federal protections and allowed states greater freedom to enforce segregation.

23. Justice Harlan and “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson

Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, arguing that the Constitution should not permit racial discrimination. He famously insisted that the Constitution was “color-blind” and opposed legally mandated segregation.

24. Berea College v. Kentucky (1908)

Kentucky prohibited racially integrated education, and the Supreme Court upheld the state's authority to enforce the law against Berea College. The ruling allowed states to restrict integrated education even at private institutions.

25. Cummming v. Board of Education (1899)

The Court unanimously allowed a Georgia county to operate a public high school for white students while closing the local high school for Black students. It refused to require equal educational opportunities for Black children under those circumstances.

26. Cases involving housing and imprisonment

The Court restricted some forms of racial discrimination but often failed to provide meaningful protection against segregation and racial violence. Its decisions left substantial room for states and private actors to maintain racial inequality in housing and the criminal justice system.

27. What film did Chief Justice Edward White show the Justices?

The film was The Birth of a Nation (1915), a racist film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan. Its showing reflected the racial prejudices prevalent among many influential Americans at the time.

28. U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

The Court ruled that a man born in the United States to Chinese parents who were not foreign diplomats was a U.S. citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause. The decision established an important precedent for birthright citizenship.

29. Bradwell v. Illinois (1873) and Minor v. Happersett (1875)

In Bradwell, the Court upheld Illinois's refusal to admit Myra Bradwell to the bar, ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment did not guarantee her right to practice law. In Minor, the Court ruled that citizenship did not automatically give women the right to vote.

30. Lochner v. New York and the Court's reputation

In Lochner v. New York (1905), the Court struck down a law limiting bakers' working hours. The Court is remembered primarily as pro-business, frequently invalidating regulations that it viewed as violating economic liberty.

32. The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873)

The Court narrowly interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, limiting its usefulness for protecting civil rights. This weakened one potential constitutional tool for challenging state violations of individual rights.

33. Favoritism versus the public interest

The Court often had to decide whether businesses deserved protection from competition or whether government could regulate them for the public good. The justices disagreed over whether economic regulation protected society or unfairly interfered with private property and liberty.

34. Powell v. Pennsylvania (1888)

The Court upheld Pennsylvania's ban on the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine. It accepted the state's authority to regulate products in the interest of public health, even when the regulation restricted business.

35. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895)

The Court struck down parts of the federal income tax law, ruling that certain taxes on income from property were direct taxes requiring apportionment among the states. The decision helped lead to the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, which authorized a federal income tax without apportionment.

36. Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918)

The Court struck down a federal law prohibiting interstate shipment of goods made by child labor. It reasoned that Congress's Commerce Clause power did not allow it to regulate local manufacturing conditions in this way.

37. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922)

The Court struck down a federal tax on businesses using child labor. It considered the tax a penalty intended to regulate manufacturing, rather than a legitimate exercise of Congress's taxing power.

38. Lochner v. New York versus Muller v. Oregon (1908)

In Lochner, the Court struck down a law limiting bakers' working hours, citing freedom of contract. In Muller, it upheld limits on women's working hours because the Court accepted arguments that women's health and social role justified special protection.

39. United States v. E. C. Knight Co. (1895)

The Court ruled that manufacturing was different from interstate commerce and that the federal government could not use the Sherman Antitrust Act to control a sugar-refining monopoly on that basis. The decision sharply limited federal antitrust power over manufacturing.

40. Oliver Wendell Holmes's point about economic theory

Holmes argued that judges should not impose their personal economic theories through constitutional interpretation. In his famous Lochner dissent, he emphasized that the Constitution was not intended to embody one particular economic philosophy, such as laissez-faire capitalism.