Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment

by Brad Snyder

Overview

The definitive biography of Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court justice and champion of twentieth-century American liberal democracy.

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter—Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice—is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court’s principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true.

A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint—he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service.

Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter’s impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education.

In this sweeping narrative, Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324004875
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/23/2022
Pages:	992
Sales rank:	487,644
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

Brad Snyder, author of Democratic Justice, is a professor of constitutional law and twentieth-century American legal history at Georgetown Law. In addition to his legal scholarship, he has written for Politico, Slate, and the Washington Post. He lives in Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Presidential Visit 1

Chapter 1 Miss Hogan 9

Chapter 2 A Quasi-Religious Feeling 17

Chapter 3 The Dominant Impulses of Your Nature 26

Chapter 4 The House of Truth 37

Chapter 5 To a Man, We Want Frankfurter 55

Chapter 6 Not Brandeis's Fight, but Our Fight 65

Chapter 7 These Days We Are All Soldiers 84

Chapter 8 Personalia in Paris 105

Chapter 9 A Dangerous Man 117

Chapter 10 The Possible Gain Isn't Worth the Cost 127

Chapter 11 The True Function of a "Liberal" 142

Chapter 12 Let Mr. Lowell Resign 160

Chapter 13 The Most Useful Lawyer in the United States 187

Chapter 14 From the Outside 205

Chapter 15 The Happy Hot Dogs 219

Chapter 16 Charming Exile 231

Chapter 17 The Most Influential Single Individual in the United States 239

Chapter 18 An Awful Shock 264

Chapter 19 Sorta Tough Ain't It! 283

Chapter 20 The Oddest Collection of People 313

Chapter 21 The Brandeis Way 332

Chapter 22 Preaching the True Democratic Faith 341

Chapter 23 Uncle Felix and Aunt Marion 366

Chapter 24 F. F.'s Soliloquy 387

Chapter 25 A Great Enemy of Liberalism 406

Chapter 26 Race, Redemption, and Roosevelt 430

Chapter 27 The Real Architect of the Victory 458

Chapter 28 Frankfurter against Black 468

Chapter 29 My Eyes Hath Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord 490

Chapter 30 I Don't Care What Color a Man Has 510

Chapter 31 The Frankfurter Cult on Trial 525

Chapter 32 The First Solid Piece of Evidence There Really Is a God 548

Chapter 33 The Wise Use of Time 570

Chapter 34 All Deliberate Speed 596

Chapter 35 Red Monday 620

Chapter 36 The Judicial Response to Little Rock 635

Chapter 37 A Health Scare 656

Chapter 38 The Political Thicket 671

Chapter 39 Father to Them All 691

Epilogue 706

Acknowledgments 713

Abbreviations 723

Notes 733

Selected Bibliography 917

Index 937

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/20/2022

Georgetown law professor Snyder (A Well-Paid Slave) takes the full measure of Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) in this multidimensional portrait. Along the way, Snyder illuminates the anticommunist Palmer raids of 1919 and 1920, the prosecution of accused terrorists Sacco and Vanzetti, the fight to implement the New Deal, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, Brown v. Board of Education, and more. Paying close attention to Frankfurter’s influence as an adviser and talent scout for Franklin Roosevelt and other Democratic presidents, Snyder suggests that the justice’s greatest contribution to liberal democracy may have been to help guide many of his former clerks and Harvard Law School students, including secretary of state Dean Acheson and Kennedy adviser Richard Goodwin, into public service. Light is also shed on the rivalry between Frankfurter, who firmly believed “that the powers of Congress and the president trumped those of the Supreme Court,” and justices Earl Warren, Hugo Black, and William O. Douglas, whom he accused of being “judicial supremacists.” Occasional criticism of Frankfurter’s decisions, including his upholding of the military-ordered exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, is softened by Snyder’s support for his subject’s commitment to judicial restraint. The book’s prodigious research impresses, offering valuable insights into the deliberations and power plays behind landmark cases and major legislation. This is the definitive biography of a towering judicial figure. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Authoritative ... [and] very timely."

Foreign Affairs - Jessica T. Mathews

"The first work to grapple with [Frankfurter’s] life and legacy in full."

New Republic - John Fabian Witt

"The conventional wisdom is that Felix Frankfurter was a liberal lawyer who became—surprisingly—a conservative justice. Brad Snyder’s spellbinding biography brilliantly revises this understanding to present Frankfurter as a champion of democracy in his day—and for our own as well."

Laura Kalman

"Felix Frankfurter was one of the most significant figures of the American twentieth century.… Brad Snyder has given this protean man the major biography he has long deserved. Democratic Justice is vivid, meticulous, and irresistibly absorbing."

Nicholas Lemann

"An amazing, riveting, eye-opening book.... Almost unimaginably relevant to current debates, especially those involving the Supreme Court."

Cass Sunstein

"Sweeping, searching and scintillating."

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Glenn C. Altschuler

"For years people interested in constitutional law and US history have missed a comprehensive biography of Felix Frankfurter, in his time the most influential figure in constitutional law and an important contributor to progressive thought and politics. Finally we have one.… This is a major achievement that deserves to be widely read."

Mark Tushnet

"Impressive.... One of the many virtues of Snyder’s book is the wealth of detailed evidence he provides for each of his assertions."

New York Review of Books - Jed S. Rakoff

"Comprehensive.... Snyder is well equipped to write [Frankfurter’s] first full-length biography."

Jeffrey Rosen

"Superb.... Deeply researched and written with authority, Snyder’s book examines virtually every aspect of Frankfurter’s career and, despite its length, remains wonderfully readable and accessible.... A monumental account of a life in public service, Democratic Justice is welcome reading for our troubled time."

New York Journal of Books - Joseph Barbato

"[Democratic Justice] is a well-timed defense of Frankfurter’s hands-off approach to judicial review at the Supreme Court, and more broadly tells the stirring chronicle of Frankfurter’s life as a supremely engaged citizen of the United States. . . . The judicial restraint championed by Frankfurter has its virtues, and Mr. Snyder’s biography ably articulates them."

Wall Street Journal - Charles S. Dameron

"A magnificent and indeed definitive biography of a vitally important but highly imperfect justice."

David J. Garrow

"Exhaustively researched, gracefully written, persuasively argued, and historically grounded, [Democratic Justice] enriches our understanding of American democracy, politics, jurisprudence, and the liberal establishment.… One comes away from a reading of this book with a profound and renewed admiration for Felix Frankfurter and the obligation to reexamine his steadfast adherence to what he believed to be the limited role of an appointed judiciary in a liberal democracy."

David Nasaw

03/01/2022

A professor of constitutional law and 20th-century U.S. legal history at Georgetown University Law Center, Snyder aims to provide a new and in-depth look at Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, the progressive lawyer who became a champion of judicial self-restraint once he was named to the Court. At over 1,000 pages, a hefty biography.

Library Journal

★ 2022-05-25
A well-worth-the-effort doorstop study of an indispensable American jurist.

In this powerhouse portrait, Snyder, a professor of constitutional law and legal history, offers a definitive life of Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), the often misrepresented justice appointed by Franklin Roosevelt who served during an era of liberal sea change in the Supreme Court—best illustrated by Brown v. Board of Education. Born in Vienna, Frankfurter moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 12, and he graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School. Throughout his career, he was known for his judicial restraint. He believed that socio-economic change should be primarily effected through the democratic process, via legislative action by elected representatives. Though he was reluctant to allow the highest court to “enter [the] political thicket,” Frankfurter believed its power was essential in securing civil rights for Black Americans. Snyder delves into every aspect of his subject’s extraordinary life: his earliest days as an immigrant immersed in New York City public schools and trying to learn English; his remarkable success in law school and as editor of the Harvard Law Review; his service under his mentor, Henry Stimson, when he was still in his 20s and eager to join Theodore Roosevelt’s crusade for “robust federal government.” As the author writes, “Roosevelt was the leader who could implement James Bradley Thayer’s ideas about limiting judicial review while empowering the federal government.” Other powerful influences included Frankfurter’s “judicial idols,” Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and Louis D. Brandeis, who championed the notion that law could serve the public good. Above all, Snyder capably demonstrates how Frankfurter “played a major role in the creation of a liberal establishment.” His far-reaching legacy, which the author masterfully captures, can be seen in his writings in the fledgling New Republic, his lifelong mentoring at Harvard Law, and his long career advising presidents and top players across the political spectrum.

An exemplary biography of a true public servant, especially refreshing in today’s toxic political climate.

Kirkus Reviews