In 1862, after Campbell’s resignation and McLean’s death, Lincoln filled three open Supreme Court seats with loyal Republicans Noah H. Arkansas became part of the sixth, and Mississippi, the fifth. The new ninth included Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Minnesota instead. The old ninth circuit, for example, included just Arkansas and Mississippi. Republicans passed the Judiciary Act of 1862, overhauling the federal court system by collapsing federal circuits in the South from five to three while expanding circuits in the North from four to six. Nine months into his term, Lincoln declared that “the country generally has outgrown our present judicial system,” which since 1837 had comprised nine federal court jurisdictions, or “circuits.” Supreme Court justices rode the circuit, presiding over those federal courts. The Lincoln administration was also looking ahead to Reconstruction and a governing Republican majority. To counter the court’s southern bloc, Republican leaders used judicial appointments to protect the president’s power to fight the Civil War. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Remaking the court Lincoln ignored the ruling.Ĭhief Justice Roger Taney tried to limit Lincoln’s powers in the Civil War. In May 1861, he issued a writ of habeas corpus in Ex Parte Merryman declaring that the president couldn’t arbitrarily detain citizens suspected of aiding the Confederacy. So did Justice John Archibald Campbell of Georgia, who resigned on April 30.Ĭhief Justice Taney helped the Confederacy when he tried to restrain the president’s power. Some Republicans declared it “the duty of the Republican Party to reorganize the Federal Court and reverse that decision, which … disgraces the judicial department of the Federal Government.”Īfter Lincoln called in April 1861 for 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, four more states seceded. Sandford ruling, in which Taney wrote that Black people were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” Five sitting justices were among the court’s 7-2 majority in the racist 1857 Dred Scott v. The court was “ the last stronghold of Southern power,” according to one Northern editor. One other Southern member had died in 1860, without replacement. When Lincoln became president in 1861, seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union, yet half of the Supreme Court justices were Southerners, including Chief Justice Roger B. And in the 1860s, Republican leaders would change the number of justices and the political balance of the Court to ensure their party’s dominance of its direction. Polk’s 1844 presidential campaign, and Justice John McLean was a serial presidential contender in a black robe. Justice John Catron had advised Democrat James K. It was an age in which the court was unabashedly a “ partisan creature,” in historian Rachel Shelden’s words. In the 1860s, President Abraham Lincoln worked with fellow Republicans to shape the Court to carry out his party’s anti-slavery and pro-Union agenda. But history shows that political contests over the ideological slant of the court are nothing new. ![]() The conflict over the court and its politics may be making headlines now. Brooks, the head of Alliance for Justice, a coalition of more than 130 progressive groups, said, “This disturbing milestone speaks to how hyper-partisan and lawless the Trump Court has become.” Wade, is nothing short of a massive victory for life.” President Joe Biden spoke of the “outrageous behavior of the Supreme Court,” while on his left, Rakim H.D. Ted Cruz of Texas issued a statement saying: “The Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case, reversing Roe v. The rulings were hailed by conservatives and criticized by progressives and liberals. Those rulings were the product of a conservative majority made more muscular and bold in the last few years by the addition of three justices appointed by former President Donald Trump. Political conflict over the Supreme Court’s direction is raging in the aftermath of two sweeping rulings in the court’s most recent term, one which expanded individual gun rights and the other which removed constitutional protection for abortion.
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