Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was one of the most ambitious and most successful of all the New Deal's experimental programs. Covering a seven-state area . . .
Bridges v. Wixon Harry Bridges was a permanent alien in the United States. A leader of the longshoreman's union, he was also allegedly affiliated with the Communist Party. The government had been try . . .
Carter v. Carter Coal Co. In response to Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), Congress tried to salvage part of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) with the Guffy-Sny . . .
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire Walter Chaplinsky was a Jehovah's Witness. While preaching, he created a public disturbance, and the police came to escort him away. Chaplinsky protested his removal and c . . .
Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins The Judiciary Act of 1789 ordered federal courts to follow the decisional rules of the states in which they were located. In Swift v. Tyson, 41 U.S. 1 (1842), the Court . . .
Gitlow v. New York Gitlow posed a challenge to New York's 1902 Criminal Anarchy Act. Benjamin Gitlow, a leading figure in the American Communist Party, was convicted for publishing a radical newspape . . .
Hirabayashi v. United States The first of the Japanese internment cases, which include Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), and Ex parte Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944), grew out of Executive O . . .
Home Building and Loan Association v. Blaisdell In 1933, during the Great Depression, Minnesota farmers, like farmers across the country, were losing their property through foreclosure. The state res . . .
Korematsu v. United States In the second of the Japanese internment cases—the first was Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943)—the Court was unable to evade the larger constitut . . .
Myers v. United States In order to prevent President Johnson from removing any government officials appointed by President Lincoln from office, Congress in 1876 passed the Tenure in Office Act. This . . .
National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation Through Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935), the Court invalidated Section 7(a) of the National Industri . . .
Palko v. Connecticut When Justice Cardozo delivered the opinion in Palko, one of the crucial cases in civil liberties history, he defined much of the judicial debate on the question of incorporation . . .
Pierce v. Society of Sisters In 1922 Oregon voters approved an initiative requiring parents to send all children between the ages of eight and sixteen to public schools. The initiative developed from . . .
Powell v. Alabama Also known as the Scottsboro Case . . .
Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States The centerpiece of the New Deal's economic program, as well as its most controversial measure, was the National Industrial Recovery Act, (NIRA) the constituti . . .
Thornhill v. Alabama Byron Thornhill was arrested while picketing Brown Wood Preserving Company and convicted for violating an Alabama statute that prohibited loitering or picketing around places of . . .
United States v. Butler The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (AAA) was the pivotal measure in the New Deal effort to aid agriculture during the Great Depression. It was based on the notion of R . . .
United States v. Carolene Products Co. This relatively insignificant case is remembered primarily for a footnote that launched a constitutional revolution. The case concerned a federal law prohibitin . . .
United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. In a joint resolution, Congress authorized the president to embargo arms shipments to countries at war in the Chaco region of South America. Using this au . . .
Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co. No case better illustrates the conflicted rulings of the Taft Court than one involving zoning for land use. Among conservatives, property enjoyed a near s . . .
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish In the midst of the congressional debate over President Roosevelt's Court-packing plan, in which he tried to secure legislation allowing him to name up to six addition . . .
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette Following the decision in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940), in which the Court rejected a claim by Jehovah's Witnesses th . . .
Wickard v. Filburn No case better exemplified the antagonism of conservatives on the Supreme Court to the New Deal than United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936), in which the majority struck down t . . .