Congressional limitaBroader Constitu Republicanization of the Supreme Court - Consequent popular distrust of this tribunal tion of its jurisdiction The new issue before the Court since the rise of industrialism tional interpretation of recent times Chief Justice since 1790-Creation of lower courts by Congress. Justice With the death of Chief Taney in 1864 the United States Supreme Court entered upon the fourth period of its existence. Taney had lived beyond his time. His intellectual powers remained with him to the end, but the march of events in that critical period of American history had left him somewhat behind. His famous Dred Scot decision, misinterpreted as it was and perhaps always will be, brought down upon him an avalanche of popular disapproval throughout the anti-slavery North. Although he retained the office of Chief Justice until the close of the Civil War, his great career as a jurist had ended years before. fluence on their attitude on Constitutional questions. Thus, the Federalism of Marshall and his associates led to the broad Nationalistic reading of the Constitution in that formative period of our judiciary, while with the democracy of Taney and his associates came the broader view of State sovereignty. The gradual republicanizing of the Court marked a return to the position of Marshall and a more decided following of the lines of Constitutional interpretation outlined by this great jurist. Some popular apprehension concerning the possible attitude of the Court existed at this time. The Civil War had raised Constitutional points hitherto unnoticed, and the resulting Supreme Court decisions were, in many instances, of momentous importance. So impressed was Congress with the situation that on one occasion it legislated to take away certain appellate jurisdiction from the Court in order to prevent it from passing upon the Constitutionality of the Reconstruction Acts. Events proved, however, that this was a needless precaution, for the Court, in passing upon the new questions of the period, took the broadest Constitutional views. In 1870 the Court was reorganized by the resignation of one justice and the increase of its membership by two appointments, made, it was always believed, to bring about the reversals of the Legal Tender Act as unconstitutional. In this period the Constitutionality of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments was among the most important questions before the Court. In 1876 the employment of two justices on the Electoral Commission to decide the HayesTilden Presidential dispute came nearer to weakening the public confidence in the Court than anything else in its history. One particular element of strength of the Court in popular estimation has been the refusal of its members to be drawn into extrajudicial controversies or service. In the last decade of the Nineteenth century the Supreme Court entered upon what may justly be regarded as the fifth term of its career. Meanwhile, in 1874, Chief Justice Chase had been succeeded by Morrison R. Waite, and he, in turn, by Melville W. Fuller in 1888, but neither of these changes materially affected the character of the Court. The issues of the Civil War had been mostly settled, and, with the great industrial expansion of the country then just beginning, new problems arose. The socalled trust problem was assuming vast proportions. In 1887 Congress passed an act for the regulation of interstate commerce the first time the Legislative body had assumed the right to regulate National industry in virtue of its interstate character. In 1890 Congress passed the Federal anti-trust enactment, known as the Sherman Law. From that time legislation of this character was abundant. The corporation movement in industry grew with almost incredible rapidity and soon involved the whole country. Congressional legislation followed with almost equal rapidity and State legislation, especially in the West, surpassed that of Congress in volume and drastic character. Congressional legislation, aiming to restrain monopoly and to control the growing power of corporations, was based upon that clause of the Constitution which declares that "the Congress shall have power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States." State legislation found its justification in the maxim concerning the exercise of authority for the common good. The resulting litigation opened new Constitutional questions undreamed of by Marshall, Taney and their associates. The recent tendency of the decisions of the Federal inferior courts and of the Supreme Court has been toward a broader and freer interpretation of the Constitution than ever before. Congress and the State legislatures in the years 1890-1910 laid claim to powers in this direction that were unthought of a third of a century before, and the Supreme Court sus |