The new constitutional law.

More than a decade has passed since the day in February, 1937, when President Roosevelt submitted to Congress his plan for establishing the constitutionality of the New Deal by packing the Supreme Court. All of the justices then sitting have been replaced by Roosevelt and Truman appointees. After an unprecedented outburst of destructive activity in 1935 and 1936, in which the Court announced eleven decisions holding acts of Congress unconstitutional, it quickly abandoned its functions in this field. As a result, with the exception of a minor provision, no act of Congress has been declared unconstitutional since 1936. Instead, the Court has come almost to assume the constitutionality of any measure which Congress has enacted, and it has abandoned precedents encased in its own past decisions when they have stood in the way of the execution of new policies sponsored by Congress or the President. As far as judicial appraisal of action by the federal government is concerned, as distinguished from state action, interpretation of statutes has largely taken the place of interpretation of the Constitution, and administrative rules and orders having the force of law have taken the place formerly occupied by the statutes. Except in a relatively few critical cases, the question to which the Court gives attention is not whether a statute violates the Constitution but whether an administrator has properly interpreted a statute. Even in the field of statutory interpretation, it seems to be the tendency to assume the validity of rulings which administrators have based upon acts of Congress. It is the purpose of the writer in this study to analyse these changes in the performance of the judicial function and the present the broad outlines of a new constitutional law that developed after 1937.

Author dc:creator

• Hord, Henry Lee, 1925-

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cagle, Alvah Penn.

• Judicial review -- United States.
• Constitutional law -- United States.

Statement dc:rights

• Worldwide access
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Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2104/13515

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:tdl-ir.tdl.org:2104/13515