Bench over Ballot

The nature of American constitutional politics was forever changed during the Progressive Era. In the nineteenth century, the process of constitutional interpretation was a vague and decentralized enterprise balanced between the courts and the public square. The meaning of the Constitution was decided as much at the polls or on the battlefield as in court opinions. This balance started to give way at the turn of the century as federal courts began asserting greater authority in the definition of constitutional bounds. “Bench over Ballot” illustrates how the assertion of judicial supremacy in the Progressive Era precipitated a fight that upended the traditional dynamic of American politics. Populist-progressives championed the people's ultimate right to correct judicial decisions while traditionalist-conservatives stood for judicial supremacy to ensure a “government of laws.” The outcome of the political battle in 1912 was a consensus between Wilsonian progressives and Taftian conservatives in favor of judicial supremacy that banished the notion of popular supremacy and transformed the nature of constitutional politics from a popular, decentralized process to a vicious battle over the personal composition of the bench—a phenomenon deeply familiar over a century later

Ballot · Battle · Constitution · Constitutional amendment · Political science · Politics · Politics of the United States · Separation of powers · Sociology · Voting · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies

• The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt

  Elting E Morison•The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt•1954

  Incluir item

• The Stormy Present

  Adam I P Smith•Stormy Present•2017

  Incluir item

• Conservatives in the Progressive Era

  Richard M Abrams, Norman M Wilensky•The American Historical Review•1966

  Incluir item

• Addresses on Government and Citizenship

  Elihu Root, Robert Bacon et al.•Addresses on Government and…•1916

  Incluir item

• The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt

  Howard K Beale, Elting E Morison•The American Historical Review•1953

  Incluir item

• The Rise of Modern Judicial Review

  Kermit L Hall, Christopher Wolfe•Journal of American History•1987

  Incluir item

• Conservative Crisis and the Rule of Law

  Robert G Mccloskey, Arnold M Paul•The Mississippi Valley Historical…•1961

  Incluir item

• The Life and Times of William Howard Taft

  Lester Burrell Shippee, Henry F Pringle•The Mississippi Valley Historical…•1940

  Incluir item

• Woodrow Wilson

  Open Access•Christopher Wolfe•The Review of Politics•1979

  Incluir item

• The History of the American Bar Association

  Norbert Brockman, Norbert C Brockman•American Journal of Legal History•1962

  Incluir item

• The Recall of Judicial Decisions and the Due Process Debate

  Stephen Stagner•American Journal of Legal History•1980

  Incluir item

• Constitutional Maintenance and Religious Sensibility in the 1920s

  Johnathan O’neill, J O'Neill•Journal of Church and State•2009

  Incluir item