Roosevelt’s realization of the peril of American democracy during the rise of communism and fascism led him to pressure the Supreme Court to lessen its strict hold on federal government. Decisions like that of Civil Rights Case and the Schechter Case (1935), in which the Court concluded that National Recovery Act of 1933 exceeded the powers delegated to federal government, could no longer stand if America was to remain an economic super-power and “Leader of the Free World.” Roosevelt began to attack the Court in the public arena, making the Justices seem old and out-dated with an inability to tackle the contemporary problems facing the United States (Irons 314). Ultimately, Roosevelt underwent his ‘Court-packing scheme,’ which sought to replace much of the American judiciary with more liberal justices. Roosevelt’s plan failed but, ironically, it loosed the stubborn Lochner Era bench through intimidation and the threat of judicial expulsion. “Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 Court-packing scheme,” writes author Roger Pilon, “brought an end to such interpretations.” (Pilon) With the Court no longer impeding his proposals, Roosevelt passed much of his New Deal legislation and, therefore, salvaged America’s economy, making critiques of American capitalist democracy less viable.
A monumental case, United States vs. Darby (1941) illustrates how, after the Court-packing plot of 1937, the Court submitted to Roosevelt and affirmed New Deal legislation. In the case, the bench upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which stated the transportation of goods produced under substandard working conditions was illegal. “The motive and purpose of a regulation of interstate commerce,” wrote Justice Stone in the opinion, “are matters for the legislative judgment upon the exercise of which the Constitution places restrictions and over which the courts are given no control.” (312 U.S. 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed 609) Not only did United States vs. Darby uphold a New Deal action, which would likely have been overturned a few years prior, but the decision unleashed a powerful precedent for civil rights legislation that allotted the federal government many powers justified by the Constitution’s commerce clause. Entering the World War II campaign, Roosevelt now enjoyed the power of passing legislation that salvaged the American economy and also created a precedent that would steer America down a more tolerant, more equal path.
The solidification of the American economy and the closure of the World War II campaign, however, failed to alleviate America’s anxiety about competing ideologies. Despite the collapse of fascism, during the 1950s it seemed that the Soviet Union, and communism alike, was once again gaining momentum against democracy. On the global front, communism made some major advances. China fell to communist forces led by Mao Ze-Dong in 1949. Despite the fact that the non-communist forces defeated the communist alliance in the Korean War in the first meeting between the two ideologies on the battlefield, the war strengthened the alliance between communist China and the Soviet Union (Merriman 1340) Furthermore, Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalinism, and the “thaw” in Soviet domestic affairs settled questions about Russian, and consequently communist, oppression (Merriman 1342) In light of this strengthening of the communist cause in the 1950s, America needed to vehemently reaffirm its commitment to democracy and equality.
As a result, the United States needed to maintain its egalitarian-driven portrayal of American domestic policy through out the most of the 20th century as the Soviet Union continued to pose a threat to the American identity and way of life. To illustrate, scholar Evan P. Schultz wrote, “Sentiment against segregation grew in government circles as America tried to recruit Third World nations to our ideological camp during the Cold War, and found objections to our legalized discrimination to be an obstacle.” (Schultz) In order to assure the success of democracy during the Cold War, the United States, its chief spokesperson, needed to uphold an image of peace, prosperity, and posterity.
America’s economic prosperity need not be doubted since it was the world’s foremost economic juggernaut, but questions arose as to the viability of American society due to lingering questions about the United States’ ability to treat all its citizens, particularly ethnic minorities, equally. The United States had to better its image as the land of the free and equal by abandoning its racist policy regarding the segregation and, thus, put their belief of equality into practice. Prior to the ideological conflict, the 1896 decision in Plessy vs. Ferguson set the legal precedent regarding equality in the classroom. The Court asserted, in a Justice Brown opinion, that the Fourteenth Amendment does not abolish the differences between the races and that the “separation but equal” law failed to violate equal protection because it made no inferences about an “inferior race.” (Sullivan 638) But as the Southern race riots broke out in the 1950s and were televised throughout the world, America could no longer afford to seem intolerant towards blacks if its egalitarian ideology was going to survive. Consequently, in 1954, the Court handed down a monumental decision in Brown v. Board of Education in which the bench ruled that the “separate but equal” policy that dominated the late 19th and early 20th centuries violated the Equal Protection Clause. The Court turned its back on its previous conclusion that the “separate but equal” doctrine did not distinguish an “inferior race” and inferred that the policy detrimentally affected black children (Sullivan 646) This assumption that the “separate but equal” policy hindered minorities set the precedent and laid the foundation for a series of civil rights reforms starting in the mid-1950s thus highlighting America’s continual and devout commitment to liberty and equality in light of Moscow’s attempt to do the same during the de-Stalinization period.
To uphold this image of racial equality, the Court continued to rule in favor of civil rights groups through out the rest of the Cold War. In Heart Atlanta Motel vs. United States (1964), for example, the Court ruled that the Heart Atlanta Motel could not refuse to rent rooms to black individuals. The Court affirmed its belief indicated in United States vs. Darby that Congress could regulate commerce for any purpose. To illustrate, Justice Clark wrote for the Court:
That Congress was legislating against moral wrongs in many of these areas rendered its enactments no less valid. In framing [Title II] Congress was also dealing with what it considered a moral problem. But that fact does not detract from the overwhelming evidence of the disruptive effect that racial discrimination has had on commercial intercourse. (379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d. 258)
Not only did the Supreme Court reaffirm its position that Congress could regulate commerce for whatever reason it wished, but it also concluded that racism hindered the national economy. In a sense, the Court claimed that free-market economies (unlike those of the Soviet Union and its communist affiliates), by their very nature, left no room for discrimination, since it impeded the “invisible hand of capitalism.” Thus the Court not only promoted racial equality but, also, silenced a communist critique that capitalist states, like America, are inherently unequal.
The Supreme Court further extended this appeal for equality and democratization with its decision in Katzenbach vs. McClung (1966), which illustrated the United States’ effort to appear more just to all its citizens in the political arena. In the case, a group of New Yorker, Puerto Rican immigrants challenged a New York voting statue requiring English reading and writing skills to vote. They claimed the law violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court asserted that a federal statue, stemming from the Enabling Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, supercedes any state constitutional or statutory provision, which is in conflict with the federal law (379 U.S. 294, 85 S.Ct. 377, 13 L.Ed.2d 290) The significance of this decision, in light of the Cold War anxiety, is two fold. First, the Court sided with the minorities, in this case the Puerto Ricans, and, therefore, illustrated America’s compassion towards minorities and devotion to equality. Secondly, the Court asserted the value of universal suffrage and, thus, affirmed America’s commitment to the democratic project. Katzenbach vs. McClung made a statement during the Cold War that the United States believed in and practiced the promise of Liberal democracy.
The Court’s promotion of equality and liberty continued through activist decisions regarding education for the remainder of the Cold War. In Green vs. New Kent, for example, the bench concluded that bussing, or anything for that matter, which would end segregation ought to be instituted. The Court became results-oriented and affirmed that racial consciousness was all right when trying to desegregate schools. Through out the Cold War, the Court took a pro-active role to eliminate segregation and create a multi-ethnic whole in America.
Ironically, as the Court seemingly upheld democracy and equality, it also actively restricted the rights of ‘un-American’ citizens during the Cold War. In Dennis v. United States (1951), for example, the bench affirmed a statue banning speech that involved the violent overthrow of the United States Government. The Court said:
Speech is not an absolute above and beyond control by the legislature when its judgment ... is that certain kinds of speech are so undesirable as to warrant criminal sanction. Overthrow of the Government by force and violence is certainly a substantial enough interest for the Government to limit speech. Indeed, this is the ultimate value of any society, for if a society cannot protect its very structure from armed internal attack, it must follow that no subordinate value can be protected. (Schultz)
Furthermore, in Robel v. United States (1967), the Court, basically, withheld the right to free speech from communists. Ironically, Chief Justice Earl Warren, proponent of the civil rights movement, wrote, "Implicit in the term 'national defense' is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. ... It would be ironic indeed if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of those liberties ... which make the defense of the Nation worthwhile." (Schultz) Simply stated, the American government was more than willing to appear just and democratic in regards to minorities but this love for equality did not extend to those who supported the competing ideology, mainly communism.
The close of the Cold War campaign, however, resulted in a change in judicial politics. In the fall of 1989, the communist world began to collapse from within starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall on October 18 (Merriman 1387) What seemed as a relatively stable system suddenly collapsed, contrary to most scholars’ beliefs that communism would take years to unravel (Merriman 1405) By the summer of 1990, Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, “announced a new Communist platform, which eliminated Marxism and Leninism in favor of ‘humane and democratic socialism.’” (Merriman 1396) Thus, the Cold War ended, but more importantly, the Liberal democratic tradition that focused on equality, which the United States espoused and preached during the conflict, defeated its ideological rival, communism.
With the communist threat eliminated, the Supreme Court returned to its strict constructionist view of the Constitution it adhered to prior to the rise of its ideological nemesis. In 1990, the same year Gorbachev admitted defeat, the Court handed down a major decision, Missouri vs. Jenkins, that hindered the further desegregation of school districts. The Court proclaimed that levying taxes for the purposes of making inner-city schools more attractive exceeded the powers intended for the judiciary by the Constitution (Sullivan 743) More importantly, however, is what Justice White failed to mention in his opinion, that is, of course, that the Court would not end racial segregation by any means necessary. The Court reaffirmed this position in 1992 in Freeman vs. Pitts, concluding that remedies did not apply to demographic changes stemming from “white flight.” (Sullivan 745) A number of cases followed the pattern of Jenkins and Pitts that limited the scope of desegregation, thus illustrating the Court’s return to complacency regarding issues of race in education.
Proactive judicial action in regards to other civil rights issues also waned as communism collapsed. Adarand Construction, Inc. vs. Pena (1995), for example, denounced intermediary scrutiny for discrimination issues and placed a higher burden of proof on the minorities to show historical injustices. In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas best illustrates the change of attitude towards race after the Cold War. He writes, “That these programs may have been motivated, in part by good intentions cannot provide refuge from the principle that under our Constitution, the government may not make distinctions on the basis of race.” (515 U.S. 200, 115 S. Ct 2097, 132 L.Ed2d 158) This statement departs from the Court’s opinion from just a few decades ago, in Brown vs. Board of Education and Green vs. New Kent, in which the Court ruled that race conscious government polices ought be encouraged.
Furthermore, Marshall asserts, “There can be no doubt that the paternalism that appears to lie at the heart of this program is at war with the principle of inherent equality that underlies and infuses our Constitution.” (515 U.S. 200, 115 S. Ct 2097, 132 L.Ed2d 158) Marshall implies that the affirmative action legislation enacted during the Cold War exceeded the powers delegated by the Constitution to America’s limited government yet; the doctrine encourages the notion of equality that Liberal ideology promotes. This conflict of Liberal ideals, created by an over-ambitious government attempting to appear more just in light of Cold War tensions, is what the Court must now deal with. To illustrate, Pilon writes, “However tentatively and uncertainly, the Rehnquist Court is at least moving toward the questions that the New Deal Court simply pushed aside to make way for the modern state.” (Pilon) The New Deal Court, which lasted through the end of 1980s, fought hard to eliminate racial tension in the United States without regard for many of the Constitutional questions it gave birth to as a result of this relentless effort to integrate America.
In conclusion, the Rehnquist Court must now cope with the enlarged federal government that the Cold War Court created. In an effort to appear more just and equality-driven in light of competing political ideologies the Court extended the powers of the Federal government to grant an expansion of civil rights. Now, The Supreme Court will likely rely more on precedent than on the actual Constitution since many of the Cold War decisions stretched the intentions of the Constitution. The Cold War Court’s decisions, however, are justified by the fact that the Court needed to assure the posterity of the American system in light of competing political and social theories. It is easy to forget the serious threat that these ideologies, particularly communism, posed to America starting with the Great Depression and lasting through the fall of the USSR. As America now faces another attack on its ideology, this time by radical Islam, the Court will, undoubtedly, need to once again evaluate its position on critical Constitutional issues and how that will affect the future of the American way. Will the modern Court conclude the Constitution supercedes American ideology? Or will the bench, like the Cold War Court, decide that democratic way outweighs the strict letter of the Constitution?
Works Cited
Adarand Construction, Inc. vs. Pena. 515 U.S. 200, 115 S. Ct 2097, 132 L.Ed2d 158 1995
Heart Atlanta Motel vs. United States. 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d. 258 1964.
Katzenbach vs. McClung. 379 U.S. 294, 85 S.Ct. 377, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 1966.
Lochner vs. New York. 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539. 499 L.Ed.2d 937 1906.
Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe: From the French Revolution to the
Present. New York : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.
Pilon, Roger. “They’re Back: The Rehnquist Court is Returning to Constitutional
Principles that the New Deal Court Had Simply Pushed Aside.” Legal Times (Feb.
2001) 20 pars. 12 Dec. 2001.
<www.lexisnexis.com>
Schultz, Evan P. “Crisis Mode: In times of war, the Supreme Court defends national
security and, sometimes, civil liberty.” New Jersey Law Journal (Sept. 2001): 22
pars. 12 Dec. 2001.
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United States vs. Darby. 312 U.S. 657, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed 609 1941.