William Hubbs Rehnquist was sworn in as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court on January 7, 1972. Nominated to the Court by President Nixon, Rehnquist went on to become Chief Justice on September 26, 1986 following the retirement of Warren Berger. The next year, Rehnquist published the first edition of his history of the Court. In 2001, he released a substantially revised and expanded version of The Supreme Court to further improve our understanding of what he calls “the least understood of the three branches” of government. This new book offers the reader an amazing glimpse into the inner workings of the Court, the major epochs of its history, and its influence on our nation.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, who died on September 3, 2005, opened his treatise with a brief story of his days as a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson in 1952. At twenty-seven, Rehnquist had recently graduated from Stanford Law School and was embarking on a career that would take him as high, in professional terms, as a lawyer can rise in our nation’s legal system. His experience, spanning over fifty years of law practice including over thirty years on the Supreme Court, uniquely qualifies him for the task of Court historian, and it is a role to which he brings great reverence for the institution and a deep well of knowledge and wisdom.
To tell the story of the institution over time, Rehnquist takes an epochal approach describing the activities of the Court during key eras of our national experience. Into this framework, he weaves a discussion of the major cases and rulings of the Court without which no history of the Supreme Court would be complete. These cases range from Marbury v. Madison that, in 1803, laid the foundation for the role and influence of the Court to the famous Steel Seizure Case of 1952 in which President Harry Truman had argued that the constitutional limits on the powers of government applied only to Congress and not to the President—an idea that, thankfully, did not survive the day. It is not possible in such a small volume to provide a comprehensive analysis of important cases, so the Chief Justice included detailed treatment of only a handful of cases that offer a good picture of the Court as a force in the formation of public policy and the balance of political power in our government. Numerous other rulings, however, are referenced in a more limited fashion as they apply to the activities of the Court at various times.
In addition to relating the history of the Court, Rehnquist also includes four chapters on the operation of the Court. These chapters cover the appointment of justices, granting petitions for certiorari, the hearing of oral arguments, and the process of deciding cases and delivering rulings. For those who are less familiar with the operation of the Court, these chapters will pull back the veil of mystery and reveal a complex and energetic organization that achieves its mission with a remarkable degree of efficiency given the challenge that is before it. Those who already have a good understanding of the Court will come away from these chapters with greater respect for the difficulties of the task and marvel at the degree of success that is achieved in spite of them.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court is comprised of many varied personalities, and Rehnquist offers some fine portrayals of the justices of the Court, "because the individuals who comprise the Court at any particular time have a great deal to say about the kind of decisions that the Court makes." His descriptions provide that bit of additional information that explains why some things happened the way they did.
The book closes with a very thoughtful chapter looking forward to the next century of the Court by frankly discussing its ascension to its present status of authority and trust and the confidence that it has earned in its first two centuries. It is here that the book becomes a full-blown apologia for the Court, and it is clear that the Chief Justice, understandably, supports a vigorous Court that is, in his words, “a full partner in the tripartite system of federal government ordained by the Constitution.”
In reporting the history of the Court, the Chief Justice deliberately stops with the end of the Warren Court. He did this "to avoid any discussion of the cases and doctrines in which any of [his] present colleagues have played a part." This may disappoint those who are seeking to read the Court's "tea leaves", but there is no clue to be found here that might reveal hints of the Court's future direction.
I read this book after having watched a CSPAN interview of the Chief Justice in which the book was the principle topic. Although I have long had a keen interest in the Supreme Court and its deliberations and have often read the rulings that are so misunderstood and misrepresented by reporters and news anchors, I found myself learning a great deal more about the Court from this book than I had expected. My favorite chapters were those that covered the Court during the FDR years and that on the granting of certiorari. The former aided my then ongoing research into the role of the Roosevelt administration in the causes and cures of the Great Depression, and the latter helped me to better understand the Court’s process for selecting cases. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who would like to know more about the Court. Partisans, however, will not find ammunition here as this book is neither left nor right politically. It is an unbiased history of the Court that is well worth the read.
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