Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT CASE

United States v. Butler et al., Receivers of Hoosac Mills Corporation

297 U.S. 1 (1936)

The Agricultural Adjustment Act was supposed to be one of the political success stories of the New Deal, for the Act sought to bring about a considerable transfer of income from the non-agricultural sector into farming. Farmers' and the political representatives of the farm states had attempted to achieve this transfer in the 1920's but had limited success. Farmers were anxious for government involvement in agriculture during the 1920's because the economic depression that struck industrial America at the end of the 1920's had reached the agricultural economy a decade earlier. In 1919, gross farm income was $16.9 billion but by 1921 the sum was almost halved. Farm income rose in the mid 1920's but then fell sharply in 1929. Increased productivity of the farmer or 'over-abundance,' led to lower prices.

The response of the farmers through their political representatives, to the depressed prices for agricultural commodities was to involve the Federal Government in a program to raise prices. The vehicle they adopted in the 1920's to achieve their objective became known as McNary-Haugenism. Four McNary-Haugen bills were introduced during this decade, two of which were passed by the Congress only to be vetoed by President Coolidge. The idea behind the bills was to restore and maintain ratio-price for basic farm commodities by establishing a government corporation with power to buy and dispose of surpluses. After the government had established the ratio-price for each of the specific farm commodities cover by the bill, and the number of commodities varies between the four McNary-Haugen bills, the Federal Government would guarantee that the market price never fell below the designated ratio-price, by purchasing the requisite amount of the designated commodities to ensure the objective. The government would then sell the commodities it had purchased on the world market.

Clearly if the Federal Government was going to guarantee a minimum price for a range of farm commodities, it also has to have a measure of control over production. Otherwise its financial commitment to ensure that the market price never fell below the guarantee price would be defined not by the government, but by the individual farmers when they made their decisions over the levels of their own production. Since the mechanisms to control production were not easy to devise or control, few plans were implemented until the development of Domestic Allotment in 1927. The fundamental objective behind Domestic Allotment was that if a farmer voluntarily accepted to reduce the number of acres he cultivated, then he would receive a benefit payment from the Federal Government. The government would raise the revenue for this benefit payment by imposing an excise tax on the processing of the commodity. The Domestic Allotment idea was simple, and was central to the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

In passing the Agricultural Adjustment Act in May 1933, Congress sought to raise the market price for corn, cotton, wheat, tobacco and rice to the McNary-Haugen ratio-price, also known as the parity price or parity. The parity price would be the equivalent of the price that these commodities had fetched between August 1909 and July 1914, which in the Act's opinion was a period when a 'fair exchange value' existed between farm and non-farm products. In order to achieve this objective, an Agricultural Adjustment Administration was established and its task was to enter into voluntary agreements with farmers to reduce the acreage they cultivated on a basis related to the average acreage that had been under cultivation in the previous five years. In return for their co-operation farmers received a benefit payment. These payments were to be funded by a tax on the first domestic processing of the commodity. The Act also contained a tax on floor stocks, which applied to commodities which had been processed before the imposition of a processing tax, and a tax on competing products both domestic and foreign. Under the Act, the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized to enter into marketing agreements with processors, associations of producers and others engaged in the handling of any agricultural commodity or product. Furthermore, the Secretary had the authority to issue licenses to them, and without these licenses they could not handle agricultural commodities.

In the two-and-a-half years after the passage of the agricultural adjustment Act, over 1,700 injunctions had been requested from the courts to restrain the collection of the processing tax and the tax was also the bone of contention in United States v. Butler et al. Footnote1 The facts in Butler were as follows: The Hoosac Mills Corporation, which was in the hands of a receiver, had received a claim for processing and floor taxes on cotton, and resisted the enforcement of the tax, whereupon they were sued by the government. The District Court found the tax valid and ordered it paid. When the receivers appealed the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the order. The case arrived at the Supreme Court on a writ of certiorari. On December 9, 1935 oral arguments commenced before the Court and over 2,000 people tried to attend. Those that did get in saw, according to Newsweek, the Solicitor General, Stanley Reed, 'blanch and sway' from the questions that the Justices threw at him. They also heard George Pepper, counsel for the receivers of Hoosac Mills Corporation, offer his prayer:

"I pray Almighty God that not in my time may the land of the regimented be accepted as a worthy substitute for the land of the free."

On January 6, 1936, in a six-to-three decision, the Supreme Court declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, Footnote2 unconstitutional. Mr. Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court and opened his discussion with the following words:

"In this case we must determine whether certain provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, conflict with the Federal Constitution." Footnote3

On August 24, 1935, the Agricultural Adjustment Act was amended by Congress, but since the appeals court decision was entered prior to this amending act, it was declared in Roberts' opinion, "we are therefore concerned only with the original act."

Mr. Justice Roberts' opinion hinged on a determination of fact. Was the processing tax a tax? Was it like any other general revenue measure or was it, in fact, part of a regulation of an activity, i.e. agriculture, which was not necessarily within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government?

In their brief, the government had argued that under the doctrine enunciated in Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, the receivers of the Hoosac Mills Corporation had no standing in the Butler case. For in Massachusetts the Supreme Court, through an opinion by Mr. Justice Sutherland, had declared that the constitutionality of an Act of Congress could only be challenged if there was a:

"direct injury suffered or threatened, presenting a justifiable issue. The party must be able to show not only that the statute is invalid, but that he has sustained or is immediately in danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of its enforcement, and not merely that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with people generally."

But, Justice Sutherland continued, with reference to revenue laws, the interest in the individual taxpayer 'in the moneys of the Treasury is shared with millions of others and is comparatively minute and indeterminable and remote, that no basis is afforded for an appeal to a court. Thus if the processing tax was a revenue measure then the respondents had no standing in Butler.

If the processing tax was not a tax and the Court perceived it along with the benefit payments to farmers as the inextricably linked elements of one and the same regulation to control agricultural production, then there were doubts over the constitutionality of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, because the Federal Government was then using its taxing and spending power to regulate an industry which it perhaps was not constitutionally entitled to regulate. But if the processing tax was indeed a revenue measure, then the Court could legitimately treat it, and the benefit payments, as separate entities, which would almost certainly lead to the conclusion that the Act was constitutional.

In dealing with the Governments' contention that the taxpayer has no standing to question the validity of a tax by challenging the intended use of the money after it reaches the Treasury, the Court rejected this argument by the government. In discussing Massachusetts v. Mellon, Mr. Justice Roberts declared that this case was distinguished from the case at bar, upon the ground that in Massachusetts the taxpayer's position was that the challenged expenditure of public moneys would deplete the public funds and increase the burden of future taxation. That argument in Massachusetts was rejected, because the taxpayer's interest in the funds and the supposed increase in his tax burden were minute and indeterminable. Here, on the other hand, the taxpayer directly resists payment of the tax, on the ground that it is a step in an unconstitutional plan.

In regard to the character of the processing tax, Mr. Justice Roberts declared:

"It is inaccurate and misleading to speak of the exaction from processors prescribed by the challenged act as a tax, or to say that as a tax it is subject to no infirmity. A tax, in the general understanding of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an exaction for the support of the Government. The word has never been thought to connote the expropriation of money from one group for the benefit of another." Footnote4

The Court's conclusion as to the nature of the exaction and the taxpayer's right to challenge it were stated as follows:

"We conclude that the act is one regulating agricultural production; that the tax is a mere incident of such regulation and that the respondents have standing to challenge the legality of the exaction." Footnote5

Turning from the discussion of the character of the tax to consideration of its validity, Mr. Justice Roberts said:

"It does not follow that as the act is not an exaction of the taxing power and the exaction not a true tax, the statute is void or the exaction uncollectible." Footnote6

Passing from the question thus declared not controlling to what was called "the great and controlling question in the case" Mr. Justice Roberts said:

"The government asserts that even if the respondents may question the propriety of the appropriation embodied in the statute their attack must fail because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution authorizes the contemplated expenditure of the funds raised by the tax. This contention presents the great and the controlling question in the case. We approach its decision with a sense of our grave responsibility to render judgment in accordance with the principles established for the governance of all three branches of the Government." Footnote7

As to the nature of the judicial function in such a case he said:

"There should not be any misunderstanding as to the function of this Court in such a case. It is sometimes said that the court assumes a power to overrule or control the action of the people's representatives. This is a misconception. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land ordained and established by the people. All legislation must conform to the principles it lays down. When an act of Congress is appropriately challenged in the courts as not conforming to the constitutional mandate the judicial branch of the Government has only one duty, - to lay the article of the Constitution which is invoked beside the statute which is challenged and to decide whether the latter squares with the former. All the court does, or can do, is to announce its considered judgment upon the question. the only power it has, if such it may be called, is the power of judgment. This court neither approves nor condemns any legislative policy. Its delicate and difficult office is to ascertain and declare whether the legislation is in accordance with, or in contravention of, the provisions of the Constitution; and, having done that, its duty ends." Footnote8

The government in their brief did not attempt to justify the Act under the commerce clause of the Constitution. An attempt to do so would have been vain. The tax and the method of spending the money raised by the tax was in furtherance of a plan to regulate agricultural production. It was a simple proposition of constitutional law that mere production is not commerce, let alone commerce among the states. Justification however, was sought under the "general welfare" clause, not that this clause is a grant of power to regulate agricultural production, but that it does justify the tax which had this result of regulation. Until 1936 the Supreme Court had never passed squarely on the construction of the term "general welfare" as used in the Constitution.

"General welfare" is found twice in the Constitution. First, in the Preamble,

We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (emphasis added).

and second, in Section 8 of Article I,

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the Common Defense and general Welfare of the United States. (emphasis added).

The Preamble, although it indicates that the promotion of the general welfare of the United States was one of the ends of the proposed government, is not, of course, a source of substantive power, but section 8 of Article I is very much a source of power, and it was the construction of these words in this section that the Court attempted to answer. What did the words, provide for the general welfare mean? Did the words known as the general welfare clause, imply a limitation on the taxing and spending power, and how extensive was the limitation? The government briefly attempted to provide an answer. It suggested that there were two broad streams of interpretation. One was suggested by James Madison, the other by Alexander Hamilton.

It is said that the general welfare clause is a limitation on the taxing power; that the clause itself has reference to and is limited by subsequently enumerated powers; that is, that Congress can tax only to carry out one or more of these latter powers. This is known as the Madisonian theory. It is said that while the clause is a limitation on the taxing and spending power, it was intended to embrace objects beyond those included in the subsequently enumerated powers; that is that although Congress may not accomplish the general welfare independently of the taxing power, nevertheless it may tax (and spend) in order to promote the national welfare by means which may not be within the scope of other Congressional powers. This is commonly known as the Hamiltonian theory.

The strategy of the government brief was clear. It wished to demonstrate that the Hamiltonian interpretation was correct, for if the Court adopted the conception put forth by Madison, that the taxing and spending power was limited by the general welfare clause to those enumerated powers listed in the subsequent clauses in Article 1 section 8, then the powers of the Federal Government to tax and to appropriate would be severely restricted.

It was asserted by counsel for Hoosac Mills that it was never intended that the words found in Section 8 were an independent grant of power to provide for the general welfare as argued by the government. If they had been intended to be such, the enumeration of powers which follows this clause would have assumed all authority that a government might take unto itself. Under this theory the listing of specified powers would have been unnecessary, for the general welfare power would have been authority to act not only in the matters specially listed, but in all other proper governmental matters. Under this theory there would have been no sovereign states with a central government of limited powers, and this the Federal Government was meant to be. It should be repeated that after the failure of the states to function satisfactorily under the Articles of Confederation, each state gave up some of their powers to the new national government. While the powers surrendered were tremendous powers, still they were few in numbers. They could be grouped in eighteen short clauses of one section of a short Constitution. This new government was to have, as was made clear to some of the many who were to adopt this government in the Federalist Papers and other publications, only the powers expressly granted to it, and those necessary by reasonable implication to exercise fully the expressly granted powers. If the clause containing the words "general welfare" should confer the broad power upon Congress to legislate for the general welfare of the United States, not only is the following enumeration of federal powers rendered meaningless, but historians and students of American history have been long in error as to the very theory of the dual system of government; it is not a central government with only the powers the sovereign states have surrendered, it is a government of limitless power, leaving to the "sovereign" states such matters as the Federal Government does not care to consider. Again, if the term was such a grant of wide authority, why was it necessary to provide at the end of the list of powers of the new government that the Congress should have power "to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." If the general welfare power was all this view contended it was, this "necessary and proper" clause was itself most unnecessary. The power to provide for the general welfare would have carried the same wide authority and more.

The conclusion is inescapable that this broad meaning was never intended to be attached to these words. Whatever interpretation may finally be given to them the view that they contain an independent grant of power can never be adopted. The long written words of Justice Story sounds the death knell to any such doctrine,

"The words 'to provide for the general welfare' have a definite, safe, useful meaning. The idea of their forming an original grant, with unlimited power, superseding every other grant is abandoned." Footnote9

One may question the statement that the meaning of the words is definite, but there must be agreement with Justices Story's conclusion that these words are no original grant of power.

Opposed to the view that the words were a sweeping grant of power was the view expressed by Madison that they were nothing more than a reference to the following enumerated powers. The history of the Constitutional Convention shows that these words in question were adopted only after extended deliberation and argument. Courts from the beginning have consistently held that every word in the Constitution, or in any Constitution, or indeed, in any statute, must be presumed to have been inserted for a purpose. In Madison's view these words might just as well have been omitted. They added nothing. If the words "general welfare" do no more that refer to the subsequent specified grants of power as an indication of how the power to tax might be exercised, then they are the only words in the Constitution with no meaning or reason.

Hamilton contended that "general welfare" was a grant of comprehensive power to tax for the general welfare. A study of the Constitutional Convention discloses that in the original draft of the Constitution, the Congress was given power to tax, subject to no limitation. "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises." After committee meetings and recommendations, conferences and argument, the words "to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States" were added. Rather than a general grant of power to provide for the general welfare, rather than a mere reference to the other enumerated powers, and rather than a bare grant of power to tax, the form of this clause, together with a knowledge of its formation and of the temper of the people of the nation at the time the Constitution was adopted, shows that the true meaning of the clause is: The Congress shall have power to tax for the purpose of paying the debts and providing for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.

In other words, there is no absolute, unlimited power to legislate for the general welfare, neither is there absolute power to tax for any purpose. This construction is in harmony with the national temper of the early days of the nation, with the history of the construction of the Constitution, and conforms with the principle of judicial construction that every word is presumed to have a proper meaning, there is a limited power to tax, a power to tax for the general welfare.

This view, first notably expressed by Hamilton and later adopted by Story, was accepted by the Supreme Court in Butler. In passing to a consideration of the proper construction to be given to the General Welfare Clause, Mr. Justice Roberts pointed out that it has never been necessary heretofore to decide which is the correct construction of the provision invoked. The contention of the Government as to the interpretation of the General Welfare Clause was stated as follows:

"Nevertheless the Government asserts that warrant is found in this clause for the adoption of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The argument is that Congress may appropriate and authorize the spending of moneys for the 'general welfare'; that the phrase should be liberally construed to cover anything conducive to national welfare; that decision as to what will promote such welfare rests with Congress alone, and the courts may not review its determination; and finally that the appropriation under attack was in fact for the general welfare of the United States." Footnote10

Discussion then followed on the two principal views as to the meaning of the clause, quoting Madison, Hamilton, Monroe and Story:

"Since the foundation of the Nation sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the enumerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are or may be necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This Court has noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction. Mr. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. We shall not review the writing of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Mr. Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of section 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." Footnote11

Adoption of the broader interpretation of the general welfare clause by the Supreme Court did not leave the power to spend free from all limitations, however, even Story and Hamilton believed that the general welfare clause imposed limitations on the taxing and spending power, but their definition of the clause provided the Congress with a greater latitude. Having in mind the relation between the taxing power and the power to spend, the Court continued:

"Story says that if the tax be not proposed for the common defense or general welfare, but for other objects wholly extraneous, it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles. And he makes it clear that the powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local welfare." Footnote12

So far as the scope of the General Welfare Clause is concerned, the Court found it was not necessary to decide whether an appropriation to aid agriculture falls within it, because the Act challenged is a plan for regulation of agriculture, and as such invades the powers reserved to the states. This point is referred to in the dissenting opinion as the pivot on which the decision is made to turn. The operation of the Act as an invasion of the reserved powers of the states was the subject of the following exposition:

"We are not required to ascertain the scope of the phrase 'general welfare of the United States' or to determine whether an appropriation in aid of agriculture falls within it. Wholly apart from the question, another principle embedded in our Constitution prohibits the enforcement of the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The act invades the reserved rights of the states. It is a statutory plan to regulate and control agricultural production, a matter beyond the powers delegated to the federal government. The tax, the appropriation of the funds raised, and the direction for their disbursement, are but parts of the plan. They are but means to an unconstitutional end." Footnote13

Having concluded that the taxing power may not be exercised to enforce regulation of matters which are concerns of the state, the Court considered the question whether Congress might exercise the power of taxation to raise funds to compel or to purchase compliance with such regulation. After indicating his belief that the plan is not in fact voluntary, because it operates through economic coercion Mr. Justice Roberts continued:

"But if the plan were one for purely voluntary cooperation it would stand no better so far as federal power is concerned. At best it is a scheme for purchasing with federal funds submission to federal regulation of a subject reserved to the states.

"It is said that Congress has the undoubted right to appropriate money to executive officers for expenditure under contracts between the government and individuals; that much of the total expenditures is so made. But appropriations and expenditures under contracts for proper governmental purposes cannot justify contracts which are not within federal power. And contracts for the reduction of acreage and the control of production are outside the range of that power. An appropriation to be expended by the United States under contracts calling for violation of a state law clearly would offend the Constitution. Is a statute less objectionable which authorizes expenditure of federal moneys to induce action in a field in which the United States has no power to intermeddle? The Congress cannot invade state jurisdiction to compel individual action; no more can it purchase such action.

"Congress has no power to enforce its commands on the farmers to the ends sought by the Agricultural Adjustment Act. It must follow that it may not directly accomplish those ends by taxing and spending to purchase compliance. The Constitution and the entire plan of our government negate any such use of the power to tax and to spend as the act undertakes to authorize. It does not help to declare that local conditions throughout the nation have created a situation of national concern; for this is but to say that wherever there is a widespread similarity of local concerns, Congress may ignore constitutional limitations upon its own powers and usurp those reserved to the states." Footnote14

The Court then cited illustrations as to how the Federal Government could, on the theory that it may raise funds through taxation and could use the funds to induce compliance with its regulations, control and regulate industry throughout the United States, and thus convert them into a central government with uncontrolled police power. Thus it might supersede the control and regulation now exercised by the states.

In summary, Mr. Justice Roberts accepted the Hamiltonian theory of the taxing power and the general welfare clause. Therefore he accepted that the Congress could levy an excise tax on the processing of agricultural products as long as it was a revenue measure. But Justice Roberts claimed that the tax was not a revenue measure, and along with the benefit payments was a federal attempt to regulate agricultural production, which was not within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government.

In conclusion, Mr. Justice Roberts said:

"Hamilton himself, the leading advocate of broad interpretation of the power to tax and to appropriate for the general welfare, never suggested that any power granted to the Constitution could be used for the destruction of local self-government in the states. Story countenances no such doctrine. It seems never to have occurred to them, or to those who have agreed with them, that the general welfare of the united States (which has aptly been termed 'an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States'), might be served by obliterating the constituent members of the Union. But to this fatal conclusion the doctrine contended for would inevitably lead. And its sole premise is that, though the makers of the Constitution, in erecting the federal government, intended sedulously to limit and define its powers, so as to reserve to the states and to the people sovereign power, to be wielded by the states and their citizens and not to be invaded by the United States, they nevertheless by a single clause gave power to the Congress to tear down the barriers, to invade the states jurisdiction, and to become a parliament of the whole people, subject to no restrictions save such as are self-imposed. The argument when seen in its true character and in the light of its inevitable results must be rejected.

"Since, as we have pointed out, there was no power in the Congress to impose the contested exaction, it could not lawfully ratify or confirm what an executive officer has done in that regard." Footnote15

Mr. Justice Stone delivered the dissenting opinion in which Mr. Justice Brandeis and Mr. Justice Cardozo concurred.

WHAT WAS THE PUBLIC REACTION TO THE BUTLER DECISION?

The Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Butler prompted several verbal attacks on the Supreme Court both inside and outside the administration. Edward A. O'Neal, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation, termed the ruling "a stunning blow to national economic recovery," while Stanley F. Morse, vice president of the Farmers Independence Council, welcomed it as a blow to "bureaucrats masquerading as benefactors."

Said Mr. O'Neal:

"The fight is on. At this time all gloves are off. Those who believe the American farmer is going to stand idly by and watch his program for economic equality and parity, for which he has fought for more than a decade, swept into the discard, will be badly mistaken.

"I consider this decision a stunning blow to national economic recovery.

"The program launched by organized agriculture must go forward. The American farmer will continue to fight for economic parity.

"We are going to look to Congress to take specific steps which will provide by legislation the mechanism by which agricultural parity is to be continued.

"It's up to Congress to provide that legislation within the provisions of the Constitution.

"If the Constitution in its present form makes it impossible for all groups to enjoy economic equality, steps will be taken immediately to amend the Constitution so that the rights of all groups and of all citizens will no longer be jeopardized.

"The laws of this country must protect equally all groups and classes. The day of special privilege for certain groups is over. The program which has just been overthrown by the court's finding is the farmers' own program. It was written by the farmers, and by no one else.

"Those who attack this program, in preliminary hearings before Congressional committees, and in suits against the United States Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, are enemies of the Republic.

"By their selfish attitude and their un-American spirit they have left no stone unturned to keep the farmer impoverished, to reduce him to a state of peasantry, and to retard the whole program of national economic recovery."

Harper Sibley, president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said of the decision:

"This important decision involves principles under which a number of other important congressional acts such as the Labor Relations Board, the Gruffey Act and the Social Security Act Footnote16 have been based.

"This ruling seems to make it clear that the Federal Government does not have the right to attempt to control the conduct of people through the use of taxing power. Taxation should be for revenue only."

Governor Talmadge of Georgia, a critic of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, hailed the Butler decision by saying:

"The United States is returning to sanity. I congratulate the American people on having a real Supreme Court."

Senator Frazier is reported to have said:

"I never could satisfy myself that the Supreme Court had the power to declare laws unconstitutional. Listen to what the President said in his message last Friday night: 'The Congress has the right and the means to protect its own prerogatives.' This means Congress has the authority to pass legislation curbing the power of the Supreme Court. If the President means what he says, such a bill will be introduced and I will be glad to vote for it. If we pass a law taking from the Supreme Court its assumed power to declare laws unconstitutional, and the court should hold that act invalid, we have perfect grounds for impeaching the entire court."

When Roosevelt received word of the Supreme Court's decision against the Agricultural Adjustment Act, he was in his White House office chatting with Secretary Dern. When the news bulletin of the decision was laid before him, according to Secretary Dern, Roosevelt held the sheet of newsprint before him and "smiled."

"He seemed to take it all right," the Secretary said. Within five minutes, Steven T. Early of the White House Secretariat announced that there would be "no comment today" by the President on the decision. Footnote17

Footnote1

297 U.S. 1 (1936).

Footnote2

Act of May 12, 1933, c. 25, 48 Stat. 31.

297 U.S. at 53.

Id. at 61.

Id. at 61.

Id. at 61.