Sherman Minton

(b. Georgetown, Ind., 20 Oct. 1890; d. New Albany, Ind., 9 Apr. 1965; interred Holy Trinity Cemetery, New Albany), associate justice, 1949–1956. President Harry S. Truman on 15 September 1949 nominated Minton to be associate justice to replace Wiley B. Rutledge, who had died. Truman and Minton had become friends in the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Minton to testify before it at his nomination hearings, but he refused, citing the impropriety of asking a sitting judge—he was then serving on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals—to testify. The committee acceded to Minton's objections and reported his nomination favorably (9 to 2) without his testimony. After prominent Republicans failed on the Senate floor to have Minton's nomination recommitted, Minton was easily confirmed on 4 October 1949 by a 48‐to‐16 vote.

Minton was the son of John Evan Minton and Emma Lyvers. After graduating at the top of his law class at Indiana University, Minton took a year of graduate study at Yale Law School. He entered public life as an Indiana public counselor in 1933, nominated for the position by his former law school classmate, Governor Paul V. McNutt. A strong supporter of the New Deal, Minton successfully ran for the Senate in 1934. Minton's career in the Senate (1935–1941) ended when another former law school classmate and Indianian, Republican Wendell L. Willkie, swept the state in his 1940 presidential bid and carried Minton's Republican rival into the Senate. In 1941, after Minton's defeat, Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Minton an adviser in charge of coordinating military agencies. Later that year the president appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

During his term in the Senate, Minton had loyally supported all of President Franklin Roosevelt's legislative initiatives to halt the effects of the Great Depression, including an endorsement of Roosevelt's plan to “pack” the Supreme Court (see Court‐Packing Plan). Minton's views about the role of the Supreme Court were shaped in the New Deal: he firmly believed that the judiciary should allow the executive and legislative branches the greatest freedom to create policy and programs with the minimum of interference from the judiciary. In the New Deal era, when the president and Congress were trying to establish administrative agencies and social welfare programs to assist the unemployed against conservative opposition from the Court, Minton appeared a liberal. In the post–World War II “cold war” context, in which anticommunist hysteria inspired governmental repression of free speech and association, Minton's continued, unwavering support of governmental policies made him a conservative (see Communism and Cold War). Actually, Minton was totally consistent in his views of the relationship between the judiciary and the other branches of government, only the context had changed. In 1952 Minton wrote the majority opinion in Adler v. Board of Education upholding New York's Feinberg Law that barred members of subversive organizations from teaching in public schools and voted with the majority in Carlson v. Landon to allow alien communists to be held without bail if the attorney general thought them a danger to national security. In the same year, he was the lone dissenter in the *Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which his colleagues invalidated President Truman's seizure of the steel industry (see Presidential Emergency Powers).

Justice Minton, who had long suffered from pernicious anemia and had circulatory troubles in his legs, retired from the Supreme Court on 15 October 1956 owing to ill health.

Bibliography

• Catherine A. Barnes, Men of the Supreme Court: Profiles of the Justices (1978), pp. 111–113

— N.E.H. Hull

• Born: Oct. 20, 1890, Georgetown, Ind.
• Education: Indiana University, LL.B., 1925; Yale University, LL.M., 1927
• Previous government service: Indiana public counselor, 1933–34; U.S. senator from Indiana, 1935–41; administrative assistant to the President, 1941; federal judge, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, 1941–49
• Appointed by President Harry S. Truman Sept. 15, 1949; replaced Wiley B. Rutledge, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Oct. 4, 1949, by a 48–16 vote; retired Oct. 15, 1956
• Died: Apr. 9, 1965, New Albany, Ind.

Sherman Minton graduated from Indiana University, where he excelled as a scholar and a varsity athlete in football and basketball. After holding a minor position in the state government, he entered national politics in 1934, winning a seat in the U.S. Senate. A Democrat, he strongly supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Justice Minton supported the authority of the executive and legislative branches to make policies without interference from the judiciary. So he tended to favor a broad interpretation of the constitutional powers of the federal government.

Minton's term on the Court was cut short by a severe case of anemia that caused physical weakness and exhaustion. This condition forced him to retire after only seven years of service. As a result, his impact on constitutional law was minimal. He tended to favor government regulations over the civil liberties and rights of individuals. Justice Minton was an avid supporter of national security objectives, which he expressed as the writer of the Court's opinion in Adler v. Board of Education. This ruling upheld a New York law that banned members of subversive organizations, such as the Communist party, from teaching in public schools.

Sources

• Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair, Sherman Minton: New Deal Senator, Cold War Justice (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1997)

Sherman Minton served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1949 to 1956. A strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies when he served as a U.S. senator from Indiana, Minton maintained a consistent judicial philosophy that allowed the legislative and executive branches wide discretion without judicial interference.

Minton was born on October 20, 1890, in Georgetown, Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University in 1915 and earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 1916. He entered the private practice of law in Indiana but also devoted himself to Democratic party politics. In 1934 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served one term. While in the Senate, Minton was a staunch supporter of Roosevelt's legislative efforts, including the president's plan to "pack" the Court with extra justices to break the conservative majority that had ruled many pieces of New Deal law unconstitutional. Minton lost his seat in the 1940 election.

In 1941 President Roosevelt first appointed Minton to advise him on military agencies and planning and then nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. President Harry S. Truman, who got to know Minton when they served in the Senate together, elevated him to the Supreme Court in 1949. During his confirmation process, Minton refused to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming it would be improper to testify. Surprisingly, the committee did not object.

During his seven years on the Court, Minton maintained his belief that the judiciary should not intrude on the actions of the other branches unless absolutely required. His conservative view led him to support decisions that upheld anticommunist policies such as loyalty oaths and restrictions on the civil liberties of subversives. Minton, writing for the majority in Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S. Ct. 380, 96 L. Ed. 517 (1952), ruled that a New York statute that prohibited members of politically subversive groups from teaching in public schools was permissible.

As a result of his deference to the other branches of government, Minton was the only dissenter in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 72 S. Ct. 863, 96 L. Ed. 1153 (1952). In this case President Truman had claimed executive authority when he seized U.S. steel mills in 1952 as the steel workers union went on strike. This occurred during the second year of the Korean War. Truman needed steel for war production and wanted to make sure that a pay hike would not cause higher steel prices, which would increase inflation in the national economy. The majority rejected Truman's claim to inherent executive power in the Constitution to protect the public interest in times of crisis. Minton sided with the president's position.

Minton suffered serious health problems for several years and resigned from the Court for health reasons in 1956. He died on April 9, 1965, in New Albany, Indiana.