Roosevelt, Franklin Delano

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the thirty-second president of the United States from 1933 to 1945. During his unprecedented four terms in office, Roosevelt established himself as a towering national leader, leading the United States out of the Great Depression through the active involvement of the federal government in the national economy. The federal government grew dramatically in size and power as Congress enacted Roosevelt's NEW DEAL program. As president, Roosevelt was responsible for the creation of SOCIAL SECURITY, federal LABOR LAWS, rural electrification programs, and myriad projects that assisted farmers, business, and labor. During WORLD WAR II Roosevelt's leadership was vital to rallying the spirits of the citizenry and mobilizing a wartime economy. Nevertheless, Roosevelt was a controversial figure. Many economic conservatives believed his programs owed more to state SOCIALISM than to free enterprise.

Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, the only son of James and Sara Delano Roosevelt. The young Roosevelt was taught to be a gentleman and to exercise Christian stewardship through public service. He graduated from Harvard University in 1904 and in 1905 wed ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, the niece of his fifth cousin, President THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Roosevelt attended Columbia University Law School but left without receiving a degree when he passed the New York bar exam in 1907.

In 1910 Roosevelt was elected to the New York Senate as a member of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY. Reelected in 1912, he resigned in 1913 to accept an appointment from President WOODROW WILSON as assistant secretary of the Navy. For the next seven years, Roosevelt proved an effective administrator and an advocate of reform in the U.S. Navy.

Roosevelt was nominated for vice president on the 1920 Democratic party ticket. He waged

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FDR's Court Packing Plan

A conservative bloc of judges emerged on the U.S Supreme Court during the 1920s. Their conservatism was marked by a restrictive view of the federal government's power to enact a certain class of regulations falling under the heading of "administrative law." Federal ADMINISTRATIVE LAW is an area of law comprised of orders, rules, and regulations that are promulgated by EXECUTIVE BRANCH agencies that have been delegated quasi-lawmaking power by Congress. Justices PIERCE BUTLER, JAMES MCREYNOLDS, GEORGE SUTHERLAND, and WILLIS VAN DEVANTER denied that the federal Constitution gave Congress the power to delegate its lawmaking function, arguing that Article II of the Constitution expressly limited the executive branch to a law enforcement role. By the advent of the 1930s, Butler, McReynolds, Sutherland, and Van Devanter had become known as the "Four Horseman" because they consistently voted to strike down every federal law that involved any congressional delegation of lawmaking power to the executive branch.

The Four Horsemen were usually joined by Justice OWEN ROBERTS and Chief Justice CHARLES HUGHES, two conservatives of a more moderate and centrist temperament. Pitted against the conservative block was the so-called "liberal wing" of the Court, comprised of Justices BENJAMIN CARDOZO, LOUIS BRANDEIS, and HARLAN STONE. The Court's composition presented a potential problem for Democrat presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), who had promised voters a "New Deal" during the 1932 election. After FDR took the oath of office, it became clear that his NEW DEAL entailed the creation of a vast federal regulatory bureaucracy designed to stimulate the U.S. economy and pull it out of the depression.

The potential problem FDR faced transformed into an immediate crisis during 1935, when the Supreme Court issued a series of decisions that struck blows at the heart of the New Deal. First, the Court struck down the Frazier-Lemke Act, a law that provided mortgage relief to farmers. Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U.S. 555, 55 S.Ct. 854, 79 L.Ed. 1593 (U.S. 1935). Next the Court upheld a provision of the Federal Trade Commission Act that prohibited the president from replacing a commissioner except for cause, thereby thwarting FDR's attempt to bring the agencies in line with his regulatory policies. Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602, 55 S.Ct. 869, 79 L.Ed. 1611 (U.S. 1935). Finally, the Court invalidated the National Industrial Recover Act, which authorized the president to prescribe codes of fair competition to bring about industrial recovery and rehabilitation. The Court said that Congress could not delegate such sweeping lawmaking powers to the executive branch without violating SEPARATION-OF-POWERS principles in the federal constitution. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570 (U.S 1935).

FDR postponed making an issue over the Court's decisions during the 1936 presidential campaign. But the Court continued invalidating important New Deal programs, including the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Bituminous Coal Act. In...