![]() ![]() It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen States tried to operate after the Revolution showed the need of a National Government with power enough to handle national problems. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again. I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two. It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed. It is the American people themselves who are in the driver’s seat. Those who have intimated that the President of the United States is trying to drive that team, overlook the simple fact that the President, as Chief Executive, is himself one of the three horses. Two of the horses are pulling in unison today the third is not. The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government – the Congress, the Executive and the Courts. Last Thursday I described the American form of Government as a three-horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed. I want to talk with you very simply about the need for present action in this crisis – the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed. But to the far-sighted it is far-reaching in its possibilities of injury to America. ![]() There are no lines of depositors outside closed banks. ![]() We are at a crisis in our ability to proceed with that protection. The Courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected Congress to protect us against catastrophe by meeting squarely our modern social and economic conditions. For in the last three national elections an overwhelming majority of them voted a mandate that the Congress and the President begin the task of providing that protection – not after long years of debate, but now. The American people have learned from the depression. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat,” March 9, 1937. When some in Congress balked at Roosevelt’s plan – accusing the president of trying to “pack” the Court – he took to the airwaves in one of his famous “Fireside Chats.” There was nothing unconstitutional about Roosevelt’s plan, since the Constitution does not specify how many judges the Supreme Court should have. Given the makeup of the current Court, this would allow Roosevelt to name no fewer than six new justices. The act, therefore, proposed to add a new justice for every member above seventy years of age. Many of the justices on the Supreme Court were elderly, the president explained, and needed more assistance in working through the Court’s heavy caseload. Given that there was a total of nine justices on the Court, all the Horsemen needed to do to block any New Deal measure was to convince one more justice that their interpretation was correct.Įmboldened by his overwhelming reelection victory in 1936, the president in February called congressional leaders and members of his cabinet to a meeting at the White House, and informed them that the Judicial Procedures Reform Act was being put before Congress that same day. Like many liberals, he believed that much of the problem stemmed from a bloc of four conservative Supreme Court justices – the so-called “Four Horsemen” – who seemed to oppose any federal intrusion into economic affairs. Butler (1936)) – on what he regarded as an outmoded interpretation of the Constitution. President Roosevelt was outraged when the Supreme Court invalidated two of the most important New Deal initiatives – the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act ( “Fireside Chat” On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program (1933) Schechter Poultry Corp.
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