Fred M. Vinson

For more information on Frederick Moore Vinson, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Louisa, Ky., 22 Jan. 1890; d. Washington, D.C., 8 Sept. 1953; interred Louisa, Ky.), chief justice, 1946–1953. The thirteenth chief justice was the son of a small‐town Kentucky jailer. He achieved the highest academic record in the history of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, earning his LL.B. degree. He soon became city attorney in his hometown. In 1921, he was elected district attorney, and three years later, was elected to Congress. After being defeated in the Republican landslide of 1928, Vinson was sent back to Congress in 1930, where he served four more terms, and on the Committee on Appropriations and the powerful Ways and Means Committee proved a staunch supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal.

His legislative skill and collegiality garnered Vinson strong congressional goodwill for later confirmations. President Roosevelt nominated Vinson for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1937. Vinson resigned from the court in May 1943 to become director of Economic Stabilization in the Roosevelt administration. His executive branch experience continued in a brief succession of positions of increasing responsibility (Federal Loan Administrator, director of War Mobilization and Reconversion), culminating with President Harry S. Truman's appointment to be secretary of the treasury in July 1945.

A flurry of speculation and political maneuvering followed the death of Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone in April 1946 over whether President Truman should elevate a sitting justice and appoint a new associate justice, or simply select a new chief from outside the Court. The infighting intensified when two different justices threatened Truman with their resignations to keep Justice Robert H. Jackson from being elevated. These bitter disagreements among the justices became personal and public. Truman apparently chose his longtime friend because of Vinson's experience in each of the three branches of government, because Vinson could be expected to support strong governmental action by the executive, and because he thought Vinson had the ability and personality to calm the Court.

That the public rancor dissipated somewhat may have been to Vinson's credit. Ideologically, Vinson usually voted with the conservative justices (Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, Harold Burton, and Stanley Reed) against the liberals (William O. Douglas, Wiley Rutledge, Frank Murphy, and Hugo Black). The conservative wing began to dominate the Court with the 1949 appointments of Justices Tom C. Clark and Sherman Minton.

Vinson was not a philosopher. He never undertook to formulate a broad or systematic view of the Constitution. He was a pragmatic man, guided by a few generalities: democracy is the ideal form of government by the informed judgment of the people; a strong government is essential to preserve individual liberty; and the president ought to lead the government.

During his tenure, the number of cases heard by the Court declined, and he assigned relatively few important cases to himself. One rumored criticism then, which since has become a Supreme Court norm, was that Vinson did all his “writing” with his hands in his pockets, outlining the general approach to his clerk and then suggesting but few revisions in the draft. His most famous opinion was his dissent in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), known as the Steel Seizure Case. When the Court held by a 6‐to‐3 vote that President Truman's seizure of the steel mills during the Korean War was unconstitutional, Vinson sided with the president. Vinson's Cold War worries (see Communism and Cold War) were best exemplified in Dennis v. United States (1951), which affirmed criminal convictions against leaders of the American Communist party. Setting the stage for the successor Warren Court, he agreed with challenges brought by African‐Americans against various discriminatory state actions.

A 1970 poll of “experts” rated Vinson as one of eight “failures,” the only chief justice to be so categorized. Other scholars have labeled this characterization unfair. Vinson's tenure on the Court was shorter than most of his counterparts (seven years), and he presided over a Court divided by ideology and personality. His opinions were conservative, except in the area of civil rights, but not poorly reasoned.

Bibliography

• C. Herman Pritchett, Civil Liberties and the Vinson Court (1954).
• Symposium, In Memoriam: Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, Northwestern University Law Review 49 (1954): 1–75

— Thomas E. Baker

Fred Vinson (1890-1953) was an undistinguished chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who consistently subordinated individual rights to the needs of government.

Frederic Moore Vinson is probably America's least written-about chief justice. His obscurity protects his reputation. During seven years on the Supreme Court this conservative jurist persistently sacrificed individual rights to what he perceived as the needs of government.

His disappointing chief justiceship contrasted with a long and laudable career as a public servant. Vinson came to Washington from northeastern Kentucky, where he had been born on January 22, 1890, in the Louisa jail building. His father, then the jailer, also farmed, operated several businesses, and served as a town marshal. Young Fred was raised in a rather disciplinarian household. After receiving primary and secondary schooling in Louisa and nearby Cattlesburg, he matriculated at the Kentucky Normal School, from which he graduated in 1908. Vinson then attended Centre College, earning both a B.A. and a law degree from that institution and compiling the highest average in the history of its law school. From 1911 to 1923 he practiced law in Louisa, also serving briefly as city attorney and commonwealth attorney.

In 1923 Vinson won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Except for two years following the election of 1928, which he lost because of his support of Al Smith's presidential candidacy, he remained in the House until 1938. At first his committee assignments were poor, but after working his way up through Military Affairs and Appropriations, he became a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee in 1931. There Vinson earned a reputation as a tax expert, and during the New Deal he played a major role in drafting such crucial legislation as the Social Security Act. Although basically conservative, he loyally supported the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, even backing the president's attempt to "pack" the Supreme Court.

Administrator and Jurist

Loyalty and service earned him a nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1938. Although remaining there for five years, Vinson found the life too quiet and cloistered. In 1942 he agreed to serve as chief judge of the Emergency Court of Appeals, and when Roosevelt offered to make him director of economic stabilization in May 1943 he accepted enthusiastically.

During his 21 months in that position Vinson was remarkably successful in checking inflation. In August 1945 he left to become federal loan administrator, and a month later he took over the Office of War Mobilization and Re-conversion. There Vinson managed to reorient the economy from war production to peace production while minimizing disputes between civilian agencies and the military. President Truman rewarded him with appointment as secretary of the treasury. Vinson's achievements during his 11 months in that position included inauguration of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund.

When death claimed Chief Justice Harlan Stone in 1946 Harry Truman, greatly impressed with Vinson's record and abilities, asked him to take charge of a faction-ridden Supreme Court. Vinson failed to unite it. Although public quarreling among the justices ceased, deep intellectual divisions persisted, and the excess of dissenting and concurring opinions which had damaged the Stone Court's reputation continued. Vinson provided no intellectual leadership. Indeed, his most notable achievement was cutting the Court's workload back to mid-19th-century levels through vigorous use of its power to decide what cases it would hear.

Vinson wrote fewer than a half dozen majority opinions of profound public consequence. The common characteristic of his judicial expositions was support for governmental authority against claims of individual right. Probably because of his experiences in Congress during the Depression and in the executive branch during World War II, he considered strong government essential to the survival of any political society and a strong national government vital to the United States. Vinson almost always resolved state-federal conflicts in Washington's favor. He also championed presidential power, especially in times of national emergency. Thus, when the Court ruled that Truman could not seize the nation's steel mills during the Korean War, the chief justice dissented strongly. He was intensely patriotic, and for him the essence of patriotism was giving priority to the interests of the government, especially during a crisis.

Civil Liberties and Civil Rights

Viewing postwar America as in almost perpetual crisis, Vinson seldom decided a difficult civil liberties issue in favor of the individual. Believing his country was in a de facto state of war with international Communism, he modified First Amendment doctrine in a restrictive direction in order to accommodate the conviction of Communist Party leaders under the Smith Act and to sustain the anti-Communist affidavit provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. Vinson also endorsed loyalty oaths, the attorney general's list of subversive organizations, and harsh treatment of aliens. In criminal procedure cases, too, he assigned far greater weight to the interests of society than to the rights of the individual. He voted to increase the permissible breadth of searches and seizures, decrease safeguards against the use of forced confessions, and maintain limitations on the right to counsel. In terms of support for civil liberties claims, Vinson ranked next to last among the 11 justices who served between 1946 and 1952.

Contrasting starkly but deceptively with this dismal record are his opinions in three major civil rights cases. Vinson spoke for the Court when it forbade judicial enforcement of racially restrictive covenants. He was also its spokesman when it held that neither a separate law school for African Americans in Texas nor an internally segregated education graduate program in Oklahoma satisfied the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. These decisions are often viewed as precursors of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which held separation of the races in public schools unconstitutional. But Vinson's opinions tended to minimize their legal impact. He probably went along with these unanimous rulings less out of conviction than because of a desire to support policy positions of the Truman administration, to which he remained intensely loyal, and a determination to deprive the Communists of a propaganda issue. It is notable that Vinson was the only member of his Court to vote against African American claims in all four of the non-unanimous civil rights cases it decided and that before his death on September 8, 1953, he voted against the position the Court eventually took in Brown. Even in the area of civil rights, Fred Vinson was far from a great chief justice.

Further Reading

There are no book-length biographies of Vinson, but he has been the subject of two doctoral dissertations - historian John Henry Hatcher's "Fred Vinson: Congressman from Kentucky - A Political Biography 1890-1938" (University of Cincinnati, 1967) and political scientist James Bolner's "Mr. Chief Justice Vinson: His Politics and Constitutional Law" (University of Virginia, 1962). Neither author had access to the Fred Vinson Papers, now deposited at the University of Kentucky. Nor did Richard Kirkendall, whose "Fred Vinson" in The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions 1789-1969, edited by Leon Friedman and Fred Israel (1969), Vol. 4, is the best short summary of Vinson's career. Irving F. Lefberg, "Chief Justice Vinson and the Politics of Desegregation, " Emory Law Journal (Spring 1975), is a superb critique of Vinson's civil rights record by a political scientist. John P. Frank, "Fred Vinson and the Chief Justiceship, " University of Chicago Law Review (Winter 1954), is an effective analysis of his work on the Supreme Court, and James Bolner, "Fred M. Vinson 1890-1938: The Years of Relative Obscurity, " The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society (January 1965), is informative concerning his early life and congressional career. The Northwestern University Law Review devoted most of its March-April 1954 number to Vinson, but the only article that is much more than a fond remembrance by a former associate is Francis A. Allen's "Chief Justice Vinson and the Theory of Constitutional Government: A Tentative Appraisal."

Additional Sources

Palmer, Jan (Jan S.), The Vinson court era: the Supreme Court's conference votes: data and analysis, New York, N.Y.: AMS Press, 1990.

• Born: Jan. 22, 1890, Louisa, Ky.
• Education: Centre College, B.A., 1909, LL.B., 1911
• Previous government service: commonwealth's attorney, 32nd District of Kentucky, 1921–24; U.S. Representative from Kentucky, 1924–29, 1931–38; judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 1938–43; director, U.S. Office of Economic Stabilization, 1943–45; administrator, Federal Loan Agency, 1945; director, U.S. Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, 1945; U.S. secretary of the Treasury, 1945–46
• Appointed by President Harry S. Truman June 6, 1946; replaced Harlan Fiske Stone, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate June 20, 1946, by a voice vote; served until Sept. 8, 1953
• Died: Sept. 8, 1953, Washington, D.C.

Fred M. Vinson became the 13th chief justice of the United States in 1946. This was the capstone of a long and meritorious career in all three branches of the federal government. Chief Justice Vinson served only seven years, until his death in 1953, as chief justice. These were years of tumult and controversy involving the Court in issues of patriotism and loyalty to the United States and issues of civil liberties and equal protection against racial discrimination.

Chief Justice Vinson acted strongly against individuals he viewed as a threat to the government of the United States. In Dennis v. United States (1951), for example, he upheld the Smith Act, which provided for criminal convictions of anyone advocating violent overthrow of the U.S. government. In the Dennis case, several leaders of the American Communist party were punished.

Chief Justice Vinson supported equal rights for black Americans in several opinions. For example, he led the Court in overturning state laws that unfairly discriminated against black people in Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Board of Regents (1950). These rulings helped to set the stage for the Court's landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which marked the beginning of the end of racial segregation in public schools and other institutions.

See also Dennis v. United States; Sweatt v. Painter

Sources

• Jan S. Palmer, The Vinson Court Era (New York: AMS Press, 1990).
• C. Herman Pritchett, Civil Liberties and the Vinson Court (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)

As the thirteenth chief justice, Frederick Moore Vinson led the U.S. Supreme Court from 1946 to 1953. Vinson rose to the Court after a long career as a lawyer, district attorney, member of Congress, federal appellate judge, and secretary of the treasury. His nomination to the Supreme Court by President Harry S. Truman followed a dramatic controversy over filling the position, and Vinson inherited a sharply divided Court. His effectiveness as an administrator helped hold the justices together. Because he was generally disinterested in writing opinions, however, critics have judged his tenure harshly. Despite his liberal attitudes during his political career, he emerged as a predominantly conservative justice except for his support of civil rights.

Born on January 22, 1890, in Louisa, Kentucky, Vinson was the son of a jailer. He graduated from Kentucky Normal College in 1908. In 1909 and 1911, he earned bachelor of arts and laws degrees from Center College in Danville, Kentucky, with the highest marks ever recorded at that school. Establishing his law practice in his hometown, he practiced law for two years before serving as city attorney in 1913 and as district attorney from 1921 to 1924.

In the mid-1920s, Vinson's visibility as a prosecutor led him into national politics. He represented Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1923 to 1929 and again from 1931 to 1937. In his last four terms in Congress, he was a strong backer of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's liberal economic recovery program, known popularly as the New Deal.

The support engendered a long relationship between the two men. In 1937 Roosevelt appointed Vinson to the federal bench, and he served from 1937 to 1943 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He became chief justice of the U.S. Emergency Court of Appeals in 1942 and the following year joined the Roosevelt administration as head of the Office of Economic Stabilization. A series of administrative positions culminated with Vinson's appointment as secretary of the treasury under President Truman in 1945.

In 1946 the death of Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone set off a controversy over his successor. The question for Truman was whether he should elevate an associate justice or select an outsider. Two associate justices—Robert H. Jackson and Hugo L. Black—were known to want the job, and each threatened to resign if the other were nominated. To settle the conflict, Truman turned to Vinson, who had both the requisite experience and a calm temperament. Vinson's record of support for a strong federal government was also important to Truman.

During his seven years on the Court, Vinson more or less lived up to these hopes. His steady administration appears to have been effective during a tempestuous era on the Court. As a justice, however, he was less impressive. Vinson was rumored to have given the bulk of his opinion writing to his clerks. Moreover, his pragmatism showed no great philosophic appreciation of constitutional law. He generally voted conservatively except when supporting decisions that upheld the discrimination claims of African Americans; this valuable support for civil rights would be taken further by his successor, Earl Warren. At the same time, Vinson's anti-Communism fanned the flames of the cold war. In Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951), he upheld the convictions of American Communist party leaders.

Vinson's eagerness to bolster federal power can be seen in his most famous opinion, a dissent in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S. Ct. 863, 96 L. Ed. 1153 (1952). During the Korean War, Truman temporarily seized control of most of the nation's steel mills in order to supply the military. The White House asserted that the seizure was necessary to prevent a national catastrophe, but the steel industry argued that the seizure was tantamount to lawmaking—a power held only by Congress. Although the majority in Youngstown Sheet held that the executive decision was unconstitutional, Vinson stated that Truman had acted "in full conformity with his duties under the Constitution."

Vinson died on September 8, 1953, while still serving on the Court. In retrospect, some critics have regarded his tenure as a failure: his lack of vision and his apparent disinterest in writing his own opinions have provoked charges that he was among the few outright failures in Supreme Court history. On balance, his administrative skills seem to have outstripped his judicial ability; he managed a deeply divided Court with tact and diplomacy.

For those of a similar name, see Fred Vinson.

Frederick Moore Vinson 13th Chief Justice of the United States In office June 24, 1946 – September 8, 1953 Nominated by Harry S. Truman Preceded by Harlan Fiske Stone Succeeded by Earl Warren 53rd Secretary of the Treasury In office July 23, 1945 – June 23, 1946 President Harry S. Truman Preceded by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Succeeded by John W. Snyder 2nd Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization In office 1943 – 1945 President Franklin D. Roosevelt Preceded by James Byrnes Succeeded by William H. Davis Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit In office 1938 – 1943 Nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt Preceded by Charles Henry Robb Succeeded by William Kingsbury Miller Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 9th district In office January 24, 1924 – March 3, 1929 Preceded by William Jason Fields Succeeded by Elva R. Kendall In office March 4, 1931 – March 3, 1933 Preceded by Elva R. Kendall Succeeded by John Y. Brown, Sr. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 8th district In office March 4, 1933 – May 27, 1938 Preceded by Ralph Waldo Emerson Gilbert Succeeded by Joe B. Bates Born January 22, 1890(1890-01-22) Louisa, Lawrence County, Kentucky Died September 8, 1953 (aged 63) Washington, D.C. Political party Democratic Spouse(s) Roberta Dixon Children Frederick Vinson, Jr. James Vinson Alma mater Centre College Religion Methodist Military service Service/branch United States Army Years of service 1917-1919 Battles/wars World War I

Vinson's signature, as used on American currency

Fred M. Vinson bust, US Supreme Court, Washington, DC, USA. Sculptor Jimilu Mason

Frederick Moore Vinson (January 22, 1890 – September 8, 1953) served the United States in all three branches of government and was the most prominent member of the Vinson political family. In the legislative branch, he was an elected member of the United States House of Representatives from Louisa, Kentucky, for twelve years. In the executive branch, he was the Secretary of Treasury under President Harry S. Truman. In the judicial branch, he was the thirteenth Chief Justice of the United States, appointed by President Truman.

Contents 1 Early years 2 U.S. Representative from Kentucky 3 U.S. Court of Appeals 4 Secretary of Treasury 5 Chief Justice 6 Potential cabinet position 7 Family 8 Death and legacy 9 See also 10 References 11 Further reading

Early years

Fred Vinson was born in the newly built, eight-room, red brick house in front of the Lawrence County jail, Louisa, Kentucky, where his father served as the Lawrence County Jailer. As a child he would help his father in the jail and even made friends with prisoners who would remember his kindness when he later ran for public office. Vinson worked odd jobs while in school. He graduated from Kentucky Normal School in 1908 and enrolled at Centre College, where he graduated at the top of his class. While at Centre, he was a member of the Kentucky Alpha Delta chapter of Phi Delta Theta fraternity. He became a lawyer in Louisa, a small town of 2,500 residents. He first ran for, and was elected to, office as the City Attorney of Louisa.

He joined the Army during World War I. Following the war, he was elected as the Commonwealth's Attorney for the Thirty-Second Judicial District of Kentucky.

U.S. Representative from Kentucky

In 1924, he ran in a special election for his district's seat in Congress after William J. Fields resigned to become the governor of Kentucky. Vinson was elected as a Democrat and then was reelected twice before losing in 1928. His loss was attributed to his refusal to dissociate his campaign from Alfred E. Smith's presidential campaign. However, Vinson came back to win re-election in 1930, and he served in Congress through 1937.

While he was in Congress he befriended Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman, a friendship that would last throughout his life. He soon became a close advisor, confidante, card player, and dear friend to Truman. After Truman decided against running for another term as president in the early 1950s, he tried to convince a skeptical Vinson to seek the Democratic Party nomination, but Vinson turned down the President's offer. After being equally unsuccessful in enlisting General Dwight D. Eisenhower, President Truman eventually landed on Governor of Illinois Adlai Stevenson as his preferred successor in the 1952 presidential election.

U.S. Court of Appeals

Vinson's Congressional service ended after he was nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt on November 26, 1937, to the federal bench. Roosevelt wanted him to fill a seat vacated by Charles H. Robb on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. While he was there, he was designated by Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone on March 2, 1942, as chief judge of the United States Emergency Court of Appeals. He served here until his resignation on May 27, 1943.

Secretary of Treasury

Official portrait as Secretary of Treasury

He resigned from the bench to become Director of the Office of Economic Stabilization, an executive agency charged with fighting inflation. He also spent time as Federal Loan Administrator (March 6 to April 3, 1945) and director of War Mobilization and Reconversion (April 4 to July 22, 1945). He was appointed United States Secretary of the Treasury by President Truman and served from July 23, 1945, to June 23, 1946.

His mission as Secretary of the Treasury was to stabilize the American economy during the last months of the war and to adapt the United States financial position to the drastically changed circumstances of the postwar world. Before the war ended, Vinson directed the last of the great war-bond drives.

At the end of the war, he negotiated payment of the British Loan of 1940, the largest loan made by the United States to another country, and the lend-lease settlements of economic and military aid given to the allies during the war. In order to encourage private investment in postwar America, he promoted a tax cut in the Revenue Act of 1945. He also supervised the inauguration of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Monetary Fund, both created at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, acting as the first chairman of their respective boards. In 1946, Vinson resigned from the Treasury to be appointed Chief Justice of the United States by Truman; the Senate confirmed him by voice vote on June 20 of that year (E. H. Moore had expressed opposition but was not present for the vote).

Chief Justice

Swearing in of Chief Justice Vinson on White house portico

Vinson took the oath of office as Chief Justice on June 24, 1946. President Truman had nominated his old friend after Harlan Fiske Stone died. His appointment came at a time when the Supreme Court was deeply fractured, both intellectually and personally. One faction was led by Justice Hugo Black, the other by Justice Felix Frankfurter. Some of the justices would not even speak to one another. Vinson was credited with patching this fracture, at least on a personal level.

In his time on the Supreme Court, he wrote 77 opinions for the court and 13 dissents. His most dramatic dissent was when the court voided President Truman's seizure of the steel industry during a strike in a June 3, 1952 decision, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. His final public appearance at the court was when he read the decision not to review the conviction and death sentence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. After Justice William O. Douglas granted a stay of execution to the Rosenbergs at the last moment, Chief Justice Vinson sent special flights out to bring vacationing justices back to Washington in order to ensure the execution of the Rosenbergs. The Vinson court also gained infamy for its refusal to hear the appeal of the Hollywood Ten in their 1947 contempt of congress charge. As a result, all ten would serve a year in jail for invoking their First Amendment right of free association before J. Parnell Thomas and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). During his tenure as Chief Justice, one of his law clerks was future Associate Justice Byron White.

The major issues his court dealt with included racial segregation, labor unions, communism and loyalty oaths. On racial segregation, he wrote that states practicing the separate but equal doctrine must provide facilities that were truly equal, in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. The case of Brown v. Board of Education was before the Court at the time of his death. Vinson, not wanting a 5-4 decision, had ordered a second hearing of the case. He died before the case could be reheard, and his vote may have been pivotal. See Felix Frankfurter. Upon his death Earl Warren was appointed to the Court and the case was heard again.

As Chief Justice, he swore in Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower as Presidents.

As of 2009, Vinson is the last Chief Justice to be appointed by a Democratic President (Harry Truman). His successors, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and John Roberts were all appointed by Republican presidents (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush respectively).

Potential cabinet position

When Secretary of State Dean Acheson came under fire from congressional Republicans for being "soft on communism" at the end of 1950 Vinson was briefly mentioned as the new Secretary of State and Dean Acheson as the new Chief Justice. This speculation died down when President Truman retained Acheson at the State Department.

Family

Fred M. Vinson married Roberta Dixon of Ashland, Kentucky, in 1924. They had two sons: Frederick Vinson, Jr. and James Vinson. Frederick Vinson Jr. married Nell Morrison and they had two children named Frederick Vinson III and Carolyn Pharr Vinson. James Vinson married Margaret Russell and they had four children named James Robert, Margaret, Michael Arthur and Matthew Dixon.

Death and legacy

Fred M. Vinson died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack early on the morning of September 8, 1953; his body is interred in Pinehill Cemetery, Louisa, Kentucky.^[1] Many historians^[who?] believe that his death was fortuitous for the Supreme Court, as his successor Earl Warren was able to persuade the Court to unanimously agree to the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education. Indeed, Felix Frankfurter was reputed to have said that it might be considered proof of divine intervention.^{[citation needed]}

An extensive collection of Vinson's personal and judicial papers is archived at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where they are available for research.

A portrait of Vinson hangs in the hallway of the chapter house of the Kentucky Alpha-Delta chapter of Phi Delta Theta, at Centre College. Vinson was a member of the chapter in his years at Centre. Affectionately known as "Dead Fred", members of the chapter take the portrait to Centre football and basketball games, along with other fraternity events.

World War I portal

See also

Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States

List of United States Chief Justices by time in office List of U.S. Supreme Court Justices by time in office United States Supreme Court cases during the Vinson Court

Wikisource has original text related to this article: author: Fred M. Vinson

References

• Fred M. Vinson at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• Biography, at the U.S. Treasury Office of the Curator.
• Chief Justice Vinson dies of Heart Attack, New York Times, September 8, 1953.
• Find a Grave, Frederick M. Vinson.
• Fred M. Vinson at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Obituary, NY Times, September 9, 1953, Vinson Excelled In Federal Posts.
• Oyez Project, Fred M. Vinson, United States Supreme Court.
• Supreme Court Historical Society, The Vinson Court.

1. ^ Frederick M. Vinson memorial at Find a Grave. See also, Christensen, George A. (1983) Here Lies the Supreme Court: Gravesites of the Justices, Yearbook. Supreme Court Historical Society. Christensen, George A., Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited, Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 17 - 41 (19 February 2008), University of Alabama.

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
• Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789-1995 (2nd ed.) (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly Books, 2001) ISBN 1568021267; ISBN 9781568021263.
• Frank, John P., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions (Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors) (Chelsea House Publishers: 1995) ISBN 0791013774, ISBN 978-0791013779.
• Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. ISBN 0195058356; ISBN 9780195058352.
• Martin, Fenton S. and Goehlert, Robert U., The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography, (Congressional Quarterly Books, 1990). ISBN 0871875543.
• Pritchett, C. Herman , Civil Liberties and the Vinson Court. (The University of Chicago Press, 1969) ISBN 9780226684437; ISBN 0226684431.
• St. Clair, James E., and Gugin, Linda C., Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson of Kentucky: A Political Biography (University Press of Kentucky: 2002) ISBN 0813122473; ISBN 978-0813122472.
• Symposium, In Memoriam: Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, 49 Northwestern University Law Review 1–75, (1954).
• Urofsky, Melvin I., Division and Discord: The Supreme Court under Stone and Vinson, 1941-1953 (University of South Carolina Press, 1997) ISBN 1570031207.
• Urofsky, Melvin I., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing 1994). 590 pp. ISBN 0815311761; ISBN 978-0815311768.

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by William Jason Fields	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 9th congressional district 1924-1929	Succeeded by Elva R. Kendall
Preceded by Elva R. Kendall	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 9th congressional district 1931-1933	Succeeded by John Y. Brown, Sr.
Preceded by Ralph Waldo Emerson Gilbert	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Kentucky's 8th congressional district 1933-1938	Succeeded by Joe B. Bates
Political offices
Preceded by Henry Morgenthau, Jr.	United States Secretary of the Treasury Served Under: Harry S. Truman 1945–1946	Succeeded by John W. Snyder
Legal offices
Preceded by Charles Henry Robb	Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit 1938-1943	Succeeded by William Kingsbury Miller
Preceded by Harlan Fiske Stone	Chief Justice of the United States 1946-1953	Succeeded by Earl Warren

v • d • e United States Secretaries of the Treasury Hamilton • Wolcott • Dexter • Gallatin • Campbell • Dallas • Crawford • Rush • Ingham • McLane • Duane • Taney • Woodbury • Ewing • Forward • Spencer • Bibb • Walker • Meredith • Corwin • Guthrie • Cobb • Thomas • Dix • Chase • Fessenden • McCulloch • Boutwell • Richardson • Bristow • Morrill • Sherman • Windom • Folger • Gresham • McCulloch • Manning • Fairchild • Windom • Foster • Carlisle • Gage • Shaw • Cortelyou • MacVeagh • McAdoo • Glass • Houston • Mellon • Mills • Woodin • Morgenthau • Vinson • Snyder • Humphrey • Anderson • Dillon • Fowler • Barr • Kennedy • Connally • Shultz • Simon • Blumenthal • Miller • Regan • Baker • Brady • Bentsen • Rubin • Summers • O'Neill • Snow • Paulson • Geithner

v • d • e Cabinet of President Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) Vice President None (1945–1949) • Alben W. Barkley (1949–1953) Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. (1945–1945) • James F. Byrnes (1945–1947) • George C. Marshall (1947–1949) • Dean G. Acheson (1949–1953) Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1945–1945) • Robert P. Patterson (1945–1947) • Kenneth C. Royall (1947–1947) Secretary of Defense James Forrestal (1947–1949) • Louis A. Johnson (1949–1950) • George C. Marshall (1950–1951) • Robert A. Lovett (1951–1953) Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1945–1945) • Fred M. Vinson (1945–1946) • John W. Snyder (1946–1953) Attorney General Francis Biddle (1945) • Tom C. Clark (1945–1949) • J. Howard McGrath (1949–1952) • James P. McGranery (1952–1953) Postmaster General Frank C. Walker (1945) • Robert E. Hannegan (1945–1947) • Jesse M. Donaldson (1947–1953) Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal (1945–1947) Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes (1945–1946) • Julius A. Krug (1946–1949) • Oscar L. Chapman (1949–1953) Secretary of the Agriculture Claude R. Wickard (1945) • Clinton P. Anderson (1945–1948) • Charles F. Brannan (1948–1953) Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace (1945–1946) • W. Averell Harriman (1946–1948) • Charles W. Sawyer (1948–1953) Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (1945) • Lewis B. Schwellenbach (1945–1948) • Maurice J. Tobin (1948–1953)

v • d • e Chief Justices of the United States Jay • Rutledge • Ellsworth • Marshall • Taney • Chase • Waite • Fuller • White • Taft • Hughes • Stone • Vinson • Warren • Burger • Rehnquist • Roberts

Supreme Court of the United States
The Vinson Court Chief Justice: Frederick Moore Vinson (1946–1953) 1946–1949: H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | F. Murphy | R.H. Jackson | W.B. Rutledge | H.H. Burton 1949–1953: H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | R.H. Jackson | H.H. Burton | T.C. Clark | S. Minton

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