The Supreme Court and the New Deal

Report Outline
Supreme Court Tests of New Deal's Constitutionality
State Case Decisions Bearing on Recovery Legislation
The National Recovery Act in the Supreme Court
Rail Pension Decision and Social Security Program
Decisions on Federal and State Moratorium Acts

Supreme Court Tests of New Deal's Constitutionality

Dissenting from the judgment of the majority in the Gold Clause cases, Justice McReynolds declared in a remarkable opinion delivered from the bench of the Supreme Court, February 18: “The Constitution as we have known it is gone.” Less than 15 weeks later, President Roosevelt declared, at his historic press conference of May 31, that the Supreme Court, in its literal application of the Constitution in the Schechter case, had gone back to the “horse and buggy” days of 1789.

The handing down of the unanimous opinion in the Schechter case, which held the National Industrial Recovery Act to be unconstitutional, came as the climax to a term of the Supreme Court in which the constitutionality of only one leading New Deal measure was sustained. The one victory for the administration was won in the Gold Clause cases, and even in these cases the victory was not complete. In other cases the Court departed widely from the pro-New Deal course it appeared to have charted in its decisions in the Minnesota Moratorium case, the New York Milk Control case and other state cases considered during the preceding term.

Administration Victory in Gold Clause Cases

The Gold Clause cases were decided, February 18, by a court divided 5 to 4—McReynolds, Van Devanter, Sutherland, and Butler dissenting. The Court had five cases before it involving the constitutionality of the joint resolution of June 5, 1933, abrogating the gold clause in all public and private contracts.