One must approach the historical record with an unyielding commitment to truth, recognizing that the events of 1935 illuminate a deepening constitutional crisis in the United States, defined largely by the Supreme Court’s steadfast resistance to the expansive reach of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. This year was a period of profound clashes, where the judiciary, steeped in a Gilded Age economic philosophy, confronted the exigencies of an unparalleled national crisis, and its rulings laid bare the stark realities of a government divided.
By 1935, the Supreme Court had already demonstrated a pattern of defending corporate interests, property rights, and “liberty of contract” against governmental incursions, overturning federal laws at ten times the historical rate between 1933 and 1936. Despite the acknowledged “national crisis,” the Court firmly believed that “extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power”. This created an undeniable “atmosphere of crisis” in Washington.
A particularly emblematic moment occurred on May 31, 1935, during one of President Roosevelt’s news conferences. His press secretary, Steve Early, casually mentioned a journalist’s remark about the Court being stuck in the “horse-and-buggy age”. Though Roosevelt initially “showed no reaction”, he quickly leveraged this imagery to highlight the Court’s perceived anachronism. In dissecting the recent Schechter ruling, he questioned whether other nations were also operating in a “horse and buggy age,” underscoring his belief that the Court’s interpretations were out of step with modern economic realities. This seemingly offhand comment “touched off a firestorm in the press,” frequently misrepresented as a direct “slur against the Nine Old Men” of the Court. Conservative media, quick to seize upon it, framed it as proof that the New Deal could not be contained within the existing constitutional framework. Yet, the President stood firm, asserting that his comments on the judiciary were simply “true” and required no “explanations or apology”.
Indeed, the Supreme Court delivered a devastating blow to the New Deal just days before, on what came to be known as “Black Monday, May 27, 1935″. In the landmark case of A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the Court unanimously struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). This decision, also infamously known as the “sick chicken case,” repudiated the NIRA’s entire system of minimum wages, maximum hours, and workers’ rights. Chief Justice Hughes, writing for the unanimous Court, determined that the NIRA unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to the executive branch and, crucially, that the poultry business in question was purely intrastate, thus falling outside Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. This ruling was not unexpected by the administration, as the NIRA was already “headed hell-bent for a bust” and its chairman was preparing to resign. However, the unanimity of the decision underscored the Court’s resolute opposition to the New Deal’s economic philosophy, effectively bringing the NIRA to its demise. Roosevelt condemned the ruling as creating a “‘no-man’s-land’ where no government—state or federal—can function,” making it clear that such judicial interpretations rendered both state and federal efforts to alleviate economic suffering ineffective.
In Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (May 18, 1936), the Court struck down a federal program designed to stabilize the coal mining industry, holding that Congress could not regulate production, only commerce. Justice Sutherland, writing for the majority, asserted that the “magnitude of either the cause or the effect” on the nation’s economy was irrelevant to the constitutional analysis. This insistence that “every journey to a forbidden end begins with the first step” underscored the Court’s deep-seated opposition to what it viewed as “forbidden” forms of economic redistribution, those “aimed at helping the less well-off”. The decision was particularly significant as it limited federal power over crucial industrial sectors.
Following this, in Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo (June 1, 1936), the Supreme Court invalidated New York’s minimum wage law, reaffirming its earlier precedent. The majority opinion, delivered by Justice Butler, found that the law “disclosed” an “impermissible ‘permanent policy'” of assisting the less affluent. This ruling was widely condemned; Harold Ickes, Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Interior, famously derided it as “Positively medieval,” arguing that it upheld the “sacred right of liberty of contract” even for “an immature child or a helpless woman” bargaining with a “great corporation”.
In essence, 1935, and the decisions immediately following in 1936, marked a period where the Supreme Court, dominated by a conservative majority often dubbed the “Nine Old Men”, methodically dismantled key pillars of Roosevelt’s New Deal. These rulings were a clear and resolute declaration that, in the Court’s view, the federal government had overstepped its constitutional bounds in attempting to address the economic and social dislocations of the Great Depression. The ongoing tension between the executive and judicial branches would continue to shape American politics and law, eventually leading to Roosevelt’s controversial “court-packing scheme” in 1937, a direct consequence of the constitutional battles of this pivotal year.