President Roosevelt's Court-Packing Plan

The President Looks for a Solution.

By the end of 1936 some of the most important legislation passed in connection with the New Deal had been invalidated by the Supreme Court. Both the National Recovery Act and the administrative machinery created by the Agriculture Adjustment Act had been rendered useless, the problems they were intended to correct as yet unresolved. Other New Deal landmark legislation, including the National Labor Relations Act, had yet to be subjected to the Court's scrutiny. Convinced the Supreme Court was not likely to alter its fundamentally conservative interpretation of the Constitution nor be moved by the economic crisis the nation faced, President Roosevelt introduced a plan he believed would protect the portion of his New Deal program still intact. That plan was presented in the guise of court reform. It would ultimately bring more harm than good to the president's legislative program and stir up a...

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