The Court at War: FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made

by Cliff Sloan

The inside story of how one president forever altered the most powerful legal institution in the country, with consequences that endure today.  

By the summer of 1941, eight years into his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had solidified his court. FDR had finally appointed seven of the nine justices – the most by any President except George Washington – and he had elevated an eighth to be the Chief Justice.
 
Only lasting the duration of WWII, the Roosevelt Court was actually a tale of two Courts.  One Court was bold and progressive, with early decisions on civil rights and civil liberties striking down whites-only primaries and protecting reproductive rights.  The other Court supinely and abjectly bowed to the revered President, blessing his mass internment of Japanese-Americans and his rushed trial and execution of accused Nazi saboteurs.
 
Cliff Sloan’s The Packed Court explores this fascinating story. It features a cast of unforgettable historical characters in the justices – from the mercurial, Vienna-born intellectual Felix Frankfurter to the Alabama populist Hugo Black; from the western prodigy William O. Douglas, FDR’s initial choice pick to be his running mate in 1944, to Roosevelt’s former Attorney General Robert Jackson.  It also includes lesser-known justices like Frank Murphy, a man now believed to be the first known gay justice who wrote a powerful dissent in the Court’s Koremsatsu decision.
 
The Justices’ shameless capitulation and unwillingness to cross their beloved President highlights the dangers of an unseemly closeness between Supreme Court Justices and their political patrons. Coming on the heels of the recent slew of appointments and confirmations, Sloan’s deep dive into FDR’s court  is a vivid, cautionary tale.    

Genres: History, Law, Politics, American History, Nonfiction, World War II, War

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The cases that came before the War Court…required its Justices to weigh the constitutional commitments to civil liberties in the context of a brutal conflagration. The Justices were not – could not be – divorced from the war effort…All of them felt a deep allegiance to FDR. They regarded him as not only their President but their friend and beloved patron, as he steered the nation through a war that was simultaneously grand, ugly, and profoundly momentous. World War II was interwoven with every ruling. In some of the Court’s most enduring decisions, the Justices decried the Axis powers’ fascism and bigotry, and historically expanded American liberties as a conspicuous contrast. But in other rulings, particularly when FDR’s actions were challenged, the Court demurred submissively. The Supreme Court and the Executive Branch, designed as two distinct forces in a system of constitutional checks and balances, emerged as allied institutions in wartime…”
- Cliff Sloan, The Court at War: FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made

Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four separate terms as President of the United States, and ultimately served for twelve years before dying in office. Given that unprecedented length of time, it’s no surprise that Roosevelt appointed a lot of Supreme Court justices. Indeed, aside from George Washington – who got to start fresh – FDR chose the second highest number of justices, eight in all, plus the elevation of Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice.

Quantity, of course, does not exactly equate to quality, which anyone who’s gone to a Cicis pizza buffet can tell you.

Roosevelt’s picks varied widely, and the ad hoc way in which they were chosen assured that FDR failed to create a consistently transformational Supreme Court. Today, Roosevelt’s Court is best known for its utter disfunction, with the justices sniping at each other in the most passive-aggressive way possible: by circulating memos.

That disfunction has been the basis for any number of books, and it’s a theme that percolates in Cliff Sloan’s The Court at War. For the most part, though, the wartime period covered in this volume represented a time of relative cohesiveness, with the justices generally speaking with a unified voice.

Unfortunately, that voice led to one of the worst decisions in the extremely checkered history of the United States Supreme Court.

***

As the title accurately promises, The Court at War covers the Supreme Court from Pearl Harbor to the death of President Roosevelt. It unfolds chronologically, but makes no attempt at comprehensiveness. Instead, over the course of approximately 350 pages of text, it picks out the biggest cases for in-depth discussions.

Sloan employs a mixture of styles. Some parts of The Court at War are purely narrative, focusing on the personalities on the Court, their interactions with each other, and the behind-the-scenes reasoning that led to the Court’s final opinions. Sloan also places a large emphasis on the relationship each Roosevelt-appointed justice maintained with the Commander-in-Chief, relationships that bridged the gap – arguably in inappropriate ways – that is supposed to exist between the separate branches of government. One lengthy section toward the end, for instance, covers Justice William O. Douglas’s covert attempt to become FDR’s vice-presidential running mate for his fourth term.

Other parts of The Court at War are focused on legal analysis of the decided cases. Sloan is a lawyer and diplomat, and he has strong feelings about what the Supreme Court did and did not do during the Second World War. With a level of detail that – for the most part – is sophisticated without requiring a law degree to understand, Sloan breaks down the basis of each opinion, what it meant at the time, and what it has continued to mean going forward.

Interspersed within the chapters are short biographical sketches of each of the justices, which introduces you to lesser-known jurists like Frank Murphy, who probably deserves a bit more recognition for his career.

***

As Sloan rightly notes, the Supreme Court’s wartime opinions veered from pole to pole.

At one end of the spectrum, there were cases that protected individual rights and liberties, such as Skinner v. Oklahoma, which struck down forced sterilization statutes; Edwards v. California, which overturned a law that made it a crime to bring an indigent non-resident into the Golden State; and Smith v. Allwright, which dismantled a Texas law protecting all-white primaries.

Taking into context the global war, these particular cases can be read – and were often explicitly written – as a rebuke to fascism. For example, in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court found in favor of two young Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to salute the American flag in school. While one might have expected the Court to be sympathetic to flag-saluting requirements in a time of heightened patriotism, it instead drew parallels to the swastika-drenched mass parades occurring in Nazi Germany.

In discussing these cases, Sloan not only provides the legal principles involved, but gives a nice factual background, introducing us to the ordinary Americans who end up changing constitutional law. Thus, in the Allwright case, we meet determined black voter Lonnie E. Smith, as well as his attorney, Thurgood Marshall, who was at the beginning of a stratospheric career that would make him one of the greatest advocates to ever appear before the Supreme Court.

***

Unfortunately, at the other end of the spectrum are cases of such kneejerk reactionism and distorted ratiocination that they continue to haunt us to this day.

One of those cases, Ex Parte Quirin, involved the capture of eight German saboteurs who’d been dropped by U-boat on America’s shores. A collection of Sergeant Schultz’s, the eight were quickly arrested, a task made easier when one of the Germans turned himself in to authorities. After a hastily arranged military tribunal, the men were on a fast-track to conviction when the Supreme Court took up the defendants’ challenge. The Court eventually issued a short order allowing the tribunal to continue, and for six of the eight to be executed. The Court did not get around to issuing a written opinion – entirely bereft of sound logical or legal thought – until the defendants were dead. This unhappy case has had a lingering afterlife, thanks to the War on Terror and the purgatorial existence of the enemy combatants still housed in Guantanamo Bay.

Even worse were the cases stemming from President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, resulting in the interment of west-coast-situated Japanese-Americans. More specifically, some 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry – two-thirds of them U.S.-born citizens – were herded into concentration camps without any prior due process hearing. It almost goes without saying that this dislocation came at enormous psychological and economic cost, and in many instances was supported by white Americans who did not want to compete with Japanese-Americans in a free market.

The most infamous case to arise from FDR’s ill-fated order was Korematsu v. United States. In Korematsu, the Supreme Court – by a 6-3 majority – upheld the constitutionality of the interments, even as the centers were being dismantled. It stands alongside Dred Scott v. Sandford as one of the most indefensible positions ever staked out by the Supreme Court. The only sliver of grace comes from the three dissents: by Frank Murphy, Owen Roberts, and Robert Jackson. Of these three, Justice Murphy's dissent is the most bracing, accurately identifying the interments as “utterly revolting,” and the “legalization of racism.”

***

Sloan’s overarching theory of this discordant Court is that the justices bent over backwards to support President Roosevelt at every opportunity. As such, they were okay striking down state laws from Oklahoma and California that failed to comport with constitutional requirements – and which did not implicate FDR – but quailed from dispensing with his odious Order 9066.

The thesis makes sense, and has circumstantial support. Still, I think it misses the larger problem, summed up in the old legal maxim: inter arma silent leges.

War is a terrible environment for decision-making. It combines a host of toxic elements – fear, hatred, and hyperemotionality – and then sets them all to boiling.

The panic that followed Pearl Harbor clouded judgments, and it led to rash choices by some that dovetailed with the racial prejudices of others. Long after the stupid-making flood of emotion subsided, the Supreme Court provided a rubber stamp, saying – in effect – that bedrock principles of law can be implicitly overlooked during times of conflict.

This is a troubling lesson for a country that has shown an inclination over the past twenty years to enter into undeclared and open-ended wars, and it begs the question as to whether the United States Constitution is simply a sunny-day document, or something deeper and more profound.

[Thomas Ray]

Linda Greenhouse's review: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/...

[Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Interesting and well researched, I didn't think I would be half as interested as I ended up being for this section of American history but I think I'll end up looking further into this time period.

[Rachael Dockery · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprising story (to me) about how close the Supreme Court Justices were with FDR to the point some of their rulings were explicitly to court (pun intended) favor with the president. Some of the decisions made then give precedent to today's rulings. Some are still argued about today.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sloan's humanization of the nine justices, specifically their personal relationships with FDR and among themselves, have a resonance for the way we look at today's Supreme Court and the conduct of its members. My only nitpick was the amount of time devoted to the VP selection in 1944. It had less to do with Wm. Douglas and the Court than it did with inside baseball played by the Democratic Party.and the"Notegate" antics of party leaders to advance Truman over Douglas.

[Brett Milam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes, I think we are currently living in unprecedented times — and to be sure, some items, like a former president of the United States being indicted, is truly unprecedented — and then other times, I dive into history and realize how often certain concerns permeate the body politic and recirculate through each generation that follows. One of those concerns is the independence of the judiciary, and specifically, the independence of the Supreme Court of the United States as a co-equal branch of government (although, I like to remind folks that the branches in theory aren’t co-equal since Congress can impeach presidents and justices). Perhaps every generation thinks of itself as experiencing unprecedented times, and again, in some ways, it’s true, but surely, no time is as unprecedented as the WWII period, which may seem weird to say about the second world war, but the scope, devastation, and impact on domestic life and policies is without match in all of human history. Cliff Sloan explores this impact on the Supreme Court in his 2023 book, The Court at War: FDR, His Justices, and the World They Made. Sloan is an attorney, former American diplomat, and law professor at Georgetown University. The Court at War is a sweeping look at the ways in which WWII and the fight for civil rights arrived at the Court’s magisterial doorstep, and how the Justices responded, often in what seem like contradictory, flawed ways, both for the good of future jurisprudence and the historically awful.

One of those initial unprecedented moves from President FDR — himself an unprecedented president, elected to his third term a month before Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into WWII — was to pack the Supreme Court. The reason was simple: The Court was too conservative in his estimation, and kept ruling against his New Deal legislation. FDR’s Court-packing efforts received bipartisan pushback and he abandoned the idea. (Interestingly, nowadays, Court-packing has more traction than it has since at least 1869.) But in practice, FDR received his wish, anyhow. Over the course of his presidency leading into WWII, he appointed seven of the nine justices, and elevated an eighth to Chief Justice. That’s the most since Washington, and obviously, hasn’t been matched or surpassed since, although Eisenhower and Nixon were close. This was due to various justices retiring or dying. And it was short-lived, because within five years of the war’s end, Truman replaced four of the justices. As the subheading of Sloan’s book indicates, these justices were FDR’s, and to put it more pointedly, they were largely obsequious to him. While not his appointed Justice, an unprecedented move for the time was FDR’s appointment of Justice Owen Roberts to head the commission whose sole purpose was to investigate the facts related to the Pearl Harbor attack. Not surprisingly, the Roberts Commission was not only completed rather hastily (only a month after the attack) and with key information missing, but the report didn’t shine any negative light on the executive branch and FDR. One of FDR’s appointees, Justice James Byrnes, helped with the first War Powers Act, which gave FDR and the executive branch new, far-reaching authority, albeit such power would ostensibly end six months after the end of the war. Byrnes would then resign the Supreme Court to become FDR’s Director of Economic Stabilization to manage the economy during the war. He was even called the “assistant president.” Finally, Justice William O. Douglas was considered for FDR’s 1944 ticket. Interesting to imagine a President Douglas closing out the war and deciding over the use of nuclear weapons rather than Truman. FDR’s first nomination, by the way, was Justice Hugo Black, who had ties to the KKK, but he didn’t resign over the news and it eventually simmered down, naturally.

But let’s get to the cases. I love getting into the weeds on cases, and why certain Justices go one way or another with them, often contrary to what our preconceived notions are, and I like the behind-the-scenes as the Justices argue amongst themselves.

One of the first major decisions from the Court, decided only a week or so before Pearl Harbor was Edwards v. California, which is actually a fascinating decision. It essentially deemed California’s “Okie Laws” unconstitutional; a law which was enacted to prevent poor people from moving to California at the height of the Great Depression. In 1942, one of the most appalling cases of the era was Ex parte Quirin, which upheld the jurisdiction of the U.S. military tribunal over the trial of eight German saboteurs (which has been used to justify trial by military commission of unlawful combatants during the Global War on Terror). Justice Frank Murphy recused himself, and I thought Justices Byrnes and Felix Frankfurter ought to have as well. Nonetheless, I did think it was intriguing that Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Royal argued against the military tribunal FDR created, and in effect, if the justices had ruled in his favor to send the case to civilian court, went against his own job interests. The Justices not only came to the decision quickly, only two days after oral arguments, but FDR even told one of the justices he would ignore the Court’s ruling if they opposed him. The Court opened the doors to six of the men being executed, but not rendering their Opinion justifying it until after the fact. How does that make any sense? If I could summate the views of the Justices, they essentially deferred to the wisdom of FDR and the military during a time of war on this case. That’s not exactly a comforting orientation for a co-equal, independent judiciary.

I have this in my notes, but I’m not sure if it’s one of Sloan’s own quotes or he himself was quoting a contemporaneous quote, but it’s apt, all the same: “The Court had become part of an executive juggernaut.” In other words, FDR, especially once the war began, was going to get deferential treatment in almost all matters of how he exercised his power.

Back to the cases. Of course, I’m being harsh on the Justices, and for good reason, but as I said at the top, they did buck the federal government at times to give us landmark cases that built the foundation for good case law, such as Schneiderman v. United States, when they rejected the government’s bid to denaturalize William Schneiderman, a self-avowed communist. Or the 1943 case, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, where the Justices upheld the right of the Barnette children to not salute the flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance (they had been repeatedly expelled from school for doing so, and anti-Jehovah’s Witness sentiment was fervent). Of course, I should note, this decision overturned the Court’s 1940 Gobitis decision that said public schools could require students to salute the American flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to much consternation from 170 newspapers that opposed the decision and concerns that the U.S. was imitating Hitler. With the 1943 decision, however, comes the most poetic sentence of the entire wartime era, and what many consider one of the greatest lines ever put in a Supreme Court Opinion from Justice Robert Jackson: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Phew, yeah, that’s good. On the other hand, Justice Frankfurter is perhaps the most perplexing justice during this time. Not only did he previously play a role in the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union, but much to the chagrin of the other justices, even evoked his minority status as Jew in his dissent in the Barnette case while dissenting, mind you. Skinner v. Oklahoma is another landmark and unanimous decision that held compulsory sterilization of criminals to be unconstitutional. The Justices used a person’s right to privacy provided under the 14th Amendment as a basis. Sloan argues that not only was this decision the foundation for the Roe decision, but that Roe’s overturn is a slippery slope to arguments favoring the forced sterilization Skinner countered. In other words, the basis for overturning Roe could lead one to overturning Skinner, too. Another positive decision was Smith v. Allwright, which Sloan argues set the table for Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights movement. He contrasts the Allwright case with the current Court’s lack of interest in judicially-enforced voting rights.

However, you cannot discuss the Court during WWII without discussing one of the most shameful Court decisions in our nation’s history, which goes back to the deference given to FDR and the military during the war: Korematsu, which was a challenge to Executive Order 9066, approving the relocation of Japanese-Americans into internment camps. What’s so interesting to think about is that we consider California such a staunchly blue state now, of course, but a.) I already mentioned the unconstitutional “Okie Laws,” and b.) California and other West Coast states was where much of the fear and ire about Japanese-Americans stemmed from. In echoes of today, some of the animus against Japanese-Americans was economic: native farmers in California didn’t like the Japanese-Americans encroaching on their turf. A lot of racism was baked into this decision long before WWII or Pearl Harbor, and coming out of Pearl Harbor, it didn’t help that there was misinformation from the Navy Secretary about “fifth column elements,” i.e., the threat from within by Japanese-Americans. One appalling statement was put out by the American Legion in California stating something to the effect of, “If they’re really patriotic, they’ll welcome the opportunity to be put in camps.” Patriotic duty was to sacrifice for the WWII cause, even if it meant camps. John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War from 1941 to 1945, in response to Attorney General Francis Biddle’s statement that the Justice Department would have nothing to do with any such plans (he would later acquiesce, naturally), said, “The Constitution is just a scrap of paper to me.” His context was when measured against the safety of Americans, but it is precisely at the time when we face danger that we need to be most vigilant about that “scrap of paper,” lest things like the internment of innocent Americans is allowed to happen. Notably, though, Justice Frank Murphy was the first Justice to use the word “racism” in a Supreme Court opinion in his scathing dissent. This was yet another area where I was disappointed in ACLU-founding Justice Frankfurter, however. I’d be remiss if in my disappointment, I didn’t also mention how Frankfurter seemingly did nothing with reports of the Holocaust. He didn’t believe Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter, who reported on what he saw of the death camps. Shameful, to say the least.

This is an aside, but I also find it sickening and maddening that many of those involved in the brief in support interning Japanese-Americans went on to have exalted careers in the government. No recriminations or accountability of the powerful. One example: Charles Fahy, the Solicitor General of the U.S., who argued the case, later served as a circuit judge and then on the U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia Circuit for 30 years. Fahy acted dishonorably and unethically by withholding crucial information about the facts of the case.

Sloan’s book is thorough, with many throughlines to today’s Court and the arguments therein, and I think, ultimately, a warning about the need for the Court to be as independent from the executive branch and the president as possible. The lessons from the War Court are many, but the strongest takeaway I have is that deference to the president, especially when the stakes are as high as they are during war when the executive seeks more power over citizens, leads to faulty, flailing jurisprudence, which is another way of saying that it leads to the trampling of the rights of American citizens.

[KP McGowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent treatment by lawyer and former Supreme Court clerk Cliff Sloan of the court's justices appointed by FDR who served the country (and the president) during the tumultuous years of World War II.

As Sloan recounts, eight of the nine justices owed their seats to the president and had unusually close relationships with FDR. The president in turn was not bashful in using the justices for administration jobs outside their judicial roles in ways that would raise eyebrows today. Most notably, FDR signaled which way the court must rule in a 1942 German saboteurs case and courted sitting Justice William O. Douglas for the 1944 Democratic VP nod while Douglas was still on the court. According to Sloan, the justices rarely resisted FDR's entreaties and in the cases of Douglas and Justice James Byrnes actively campaigned for alternative roles in the administration.

Sloan also limns how the justices' decisions were inevitably shaped by the emotions and anxieties stirred by the U.S.'s entry into the world war. It was the best of times and worst of times: the court protected civil liberties in some cases by drawing a stark contrast between the U.S. constitutional democracy and our country's totalitarian foes. But in its notorious decisions upholding the curfews and forced detention of Japanese-Americans, Sloan says the court caved to Roosevelt's pressure and the racist emotions of the times.

The book generally is written in a brisk, breezy style that makes space for interesting capsule biographies of each justice. The sole exception is a tedious, wordy chapter about the machinations behind the 1944 vice presidential nomination, which seems to come from another book! In my opinion, Sloan offers way too much detail in this almost hour-by-hour account. He could have made his points about the impropriety of Douglas's conduct and FDR's maddening manipulation of the process much more succinctly.

Overall, as a lawyer and retired journalist, I found this an informative, engaging read right up my alley.

[Alexis Olmsted · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read considering the current constitution of the Supreme Court and Donald Trump potentially having the opportunity to nominate two more members in his next term. Although he didn’t explicitly engage in court packing like FDR, his justices have shown particular loyalty to him (especially evidenced in how they ironically view Biden’s regulations on businesses as “overreach” while also granting Trump broad presidential immunity for trying to overthrow the government). FDR was a left-wing populist, contrasted with Trump’s own far right-wing populism, and while I consider many of his policies and his court’s decisions as positive improvements to society, this book shows the dangers of a president who is too close to his justices. For example, the book demonstrates how Japanese internment and the execution of German saboteurs was justified, not by legal theory, but by fealty to the president’s objectives. The decisions and backgrounds highlighted demonstrate that although the court will claim sound reasonings for every decision, it is not always as it appears. Every Supreme Court appointment, argument, and decision is ultimately political and will move the country in one direction, for better or worse.

[Jen Juenke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anything to do with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and I am all over it.
I had not yet delved deep into some of the landmark Supreme Court decisions during this time.
I had known about the Japanese Internment one.

This book is well researched and at times hard to read.
The chapter on the Vice President was especially difficult to read because the author included a ton of names that glossed my eyes over and I began to drool.

However, the book really showed the connection between FDR and the Justices. The close relationships of the president and the justices would be unheard of today.

Further, the author showed how decisions from this court had ramifications to the present. That was unexpected and I was really happy to see. That is a first rate historian, showing how the past can affect the present.

I also learned about the one legged chicken stealer in Skinner v Oklahoma and how that affects reproductive rights to this day.
I learned about the 8 German saboteurs and how the court mishandled that case.

There was so much to learn and I appreciated it all.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for this honest review.

[Mike (HistoryBuff) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Court at War. A very good look at the Supreme Court during the presidency of FDR. I came away with an appreciation of the complexities of the cases that the court handled during the war years. I also came to the conclusion that loyalty to FDR swayed some, if not most, of those decisions. Some of the cases mentioned include Skinner v Oklahoma, which continues to affect reproductive rights to this day, left me cheering. Others, such as Korematsu v. United States and the case of the 8 German saboteurs, left me scratching my head.
The author does not go in great detail about the cases, but just enough to keep you intrigued to learn of the outcomes and how it affected noy only the people involved, but the country as a whole. You also get a brief background of each of the justices as particular cases are introduced.
I gave this book a 4, really would like to give a little more, say 4.3 or 4.4. While the subject matter was very interesting, there were a couple sections that dragged on a little too much for my taste.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the Court or FDR. Well worth your time

[Michael Springer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched and very accessible history of the Supreme Court during the Franklin Roosevelt years. It truly was FDR's court in every sense of the term: By 1938 Roosevelt had appointed 8 of the 9 justices. Most of them were personal friends, cronies and political allies. (Interestingly, only 2 of the 8 had served in the judiciary previously.) Roosevelt treated the Supremes as if they were members of his Administration -- discussing policy with them over cocktails or on his yacht, assigning them to commissions even as they served on the Court, etc. The degree of chumminess was breathtaking. One can only imagine how critics and political opponents would howl if a certain recent President had taken such liberties and compromised the Court in this way....

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I have read about the Supreme Court. There are many lessons from FDR’s War Court that are applicable to today’s Supreme Court. In some areas the war court rises above the fray with decisions which advanced our democracy. At other times, it acted in the opposite direction. I especially appreciated the way the author compared and contrasted the two courts.

Another feature I particularly found insightful was how each of the justices were singled out for their strengths and weaknesses in carrying out their duties. It was helpful to learn of each of their backgrounds before and after being on the court. I look forward to reading future legal books by Cliff Sloan.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

With ample reason I've checked out of following SCOTUS and a slight connection to the author and my fondness for the period piqued my curiosity to make an exception for this. Turns out, no surprise, the good old days weren't always good. I was surprised at the cowardice displayed by the Court - probably shouldn't be - particularly when it came to the summary execution of a band of misfits masquerading as Nazi spies and especially with Korematsu and the internment camps. Not just bad decisions in the long arc of history, but in the deliberate and not-at-all artful dodging of the core issues in each of these cases.

[Or-el · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times agreeable, at times opinionated in interpretation, no one can deny that Sloan brings serious thought and detail to his research here, and it is a valuable read for anyone who wants to read about a fascinating time in the Court’s history. This period is understudied because of the focus on the war, and on the political atmosphere. But many of the most important precedents we should consider are the results of these formative years and questions, and many hold cautionary tales about judicial power, our system of checks and balances, and the like. I don’t agree that every argument Sloan is correct. But it is good that he is making them, and important to take some of the lessons too.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Sloan does a great job here connecting politics, history, and the Court in a way that’s both easy to understand and a great reminder that, in reality, those things are connected—and have been connected—in more ways than imaginable.

It’s great to read this book as someone who knows the cases referenced within, but not too much about how the Court came to decide them. The added context is great for law students and lovers of history alike, and I suspect that many readers will fall into both camps.

A huge section of this book is dedicated to the 1944 democratic convention, and for good reason. This doesn’t limit the book’s scope, however, as Professor Sloan manages to give us satisfying biographies of all the members of the War Court and offers meaningful critiques of their choices at the same time. I particularly appreciate that this book returns, at several points, to reaping with the cognitive dissonance between some of the Court’s worst decisions and some of their best. This acknowledgment of the complexity of the Court is welcome, especially in the modern era.

One final note: I bought this book at a used bookstore in Delaware on a family trip last year and I am finally getting around to reading it. When I cracked it open I was surprised to find that this was a signed copy. I’m glad to own it, and I think you’ll be glad to read it.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read about the Supreme Court and the cases they delivered a verdict on during World War II. The main thesis of the book is the Supreme Court and how it ruled in favor of the rights of individuals and failed at times like the notorious Japanese internment camps. An engaging book that was well written.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly well written and well researched book about the Court during WWII. Sloan describes how the justices dealt with their cases, each other, and the President who appointed them. Many of the stories are especially relevant today. It’s unusual for a book about the Court to be such a page turner.

[Terry Warco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who thinks are current Supreme Court is too political or that we are in a period unlike any in our history should read this book. History teaches us many things, among them that as a rule whatever we are experiencing has been experienced before.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the Supreme Court justices during the FDR administration. Shows them as a group of all too fallible human beings, struggling to balance their friendship and loyalty to FDR along side their regard for the law and their ego filled status conflicts with each other.

[Jason S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comprehensive account of the FDR court, looking at all major cases and the eight justices he appointed. Focus mostly on post 1937. Great biography of each justice as part of the look at major cases. Well written

[Victoria Percoco · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. So. Much. (Good) information.

[Crista · Rating 4 out of 5]

lengthy. Basically an interesting textbook.

[Rolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written, well-researched piece of history. The section on the Korematsu case is the best part.