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Harry S. Truman and the Supreme Court

During his presidency, Harry S. Truman made four appointments to the Supreme Court. His personal views of the court were made clear in correspondence in which he stated that the courts should neither "dabble in policy" nor "read law school theories into the law and policy laid down by the Congress."

The Courts Should Not "Dabble in Policy"

A month after he became President in 1945, Harry S. Truman expressed his views regarding the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in a private memorandum. The courts, he wrote, should neither "dabble in policy" nor "read law school theories into the law and policy laid down by the Congress." Truman's respect for the prerogatives of the elected branches of government, and his opposition to policymaking by unelected judges, were shaped by his experiences as a politician and U.S. Senator. These principles would be reflected in Truman's appointments to and relations with the Supreme Court as President.

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A Contentious and Divided Court

Truman's four appointees to the Court - Justice Harold Burton in 1945, Chief Justice Fred Vinson in 1946, and Justices Sherman Minton and Tom Clark in 1949 - generally shared his views regarding the judiciary. Significantly, all four appointees were personal friends or acquaintances of the President, with backgrounds that were primarily political rather than judicial. Burton and Minton had served with Truman in the Senate; Vinson and Clark had served in Truman's Cabinet (the former as Treasury Secretary and the latter as Attorney General). Vinson, Truman's choice as Chief Justice, was a favorite poker-playing companion of the President, who hoped that his friend's political skills would help restore harmony to what had become an increasingly contentious and divided Court. But the Vinson Court continued to be plagued by internal conflicts. Justice Hugo Black's commitment to judicial activism in defense of civil liberties and the Bill of Rights clashed with Justice Felix Frankfurter's belief in judicial restraint and deference to legislative authority. Philosophical differences were aggravated by personal animosities on the Court, most notably between Black and Justice Robert H. Jackson.

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Communist Subversion and Civil Rights

The Vinson Court for the most part was sympathetic to efforts by the government to combat alleged communist subversion, regardless of concerns about civil liberties. In Dennis v. United States (1951), for example, the Court upheld the convictions of a group of American communist leaders under the Smith Act. In other decisions, the Court supported government efforts to purge communists from labor unions and the teaching profession. In the field of civil rights, however, the Vinson Court compiled a much more liberal record. At that time, homebuyers were often required to sign "restrictive covenants" promising that they would not sell their homes to African-Americans. In the landmark case of Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), the Supreme Court declared that these covenants could not be enforced by state courts. With the support of the Truman Administration, the Court also took important steps toward prohibiting racial discrimination in higher education. In a series of cases, the Court struck down attempts by state universities to ban or segregate black students - decisions that paved the way for the historic Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954.

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A Clash Over Steel

The Vinson Court's most significant clash with the Truman Administration occurred in 1952, when the President seized the nation's steel mills to avert a strike that threatened to interfere with the waging of the Korean War. In Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company v. Sawyer, the Court held that Truman's seizure of the mills was unconstitutional. Truman was furious when this decision resulted in the nationwide strike that he had tried to prevent. What especially frustrated the President was that two Justices he had appointed to the Court-Burton and Clark-had joined in the majority against him.

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