FDR v. The Constitution: The Court-Packing Fight and the Triumph of Democracy

by Burt Solomon

Overview

In the wake of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's landslide re-election of 1936, the popular president-never anything but self-confident-unaccountably overreached. Deeply frustrated by a Supreme Court that had blocked many of his New Deal initiatives, FDR proposed to enlarge it from 9 justices to 15. The now-famous "court packing scheme" divided Roosevelt's own party and inflamed the country at large, and it failed-humiliatingly for FDR-because the president could persuade neither the public nor the Senate of its virtues. And yet, ironically, he could claim ultimate victory, for the Court that emerged from the revolution of 1937-its majority shifted from conservative to liberal-lasted for the next 68 years, until the recent Bush appointments have tilted it back. Historian Burt Solomon, deeply steeped in Washington's lore, skillfully chronicles one of the great set pieces in American history, illuminating the inner workings of the nation's capital as the three branches of our government squared off. The Supreme Court has generated many fascinating and dramatic stories, but none more so than that of the 168 days during which one of our greatest presidents attempted to outmaneuver the Constitution-an action that inevitably calls forth parallels with the present.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802719577
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Burt Solomon has been writing about the nation's capital and its history for two decades. For 17 years he was staff correspondent for National Journal, the nonpartisan weekly magazine about politics and government; he covered the White House during the George H.W. Bush and first Clinton administrations. He is the author of The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital, and Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball, named one of the 20 best books of the millennium by GQ. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Burt Solomon has been writing about the nation's capital and its history for two decades. For 17 years he was staff correspondent for National Journal, the nonpartisan weekly magazine about politics and government; he covered the White House during the George H.W. Bush and first Clinton administrations. He is the author of The Washington Century: Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital, and Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball, named one of the 20 best books of the millennium by GQ. He lives in Washington, D.C.