Supreme Court-packing plan

The Supreme Court-packing plan was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1937 proposal to reshape the Supreme Court by increasing its membership from nine justices to fifteen if justices who had reached seventy did not retire. It arose after the Court had declared earlier New Deal programs unconstitutional, but the proposal’s fate turned on more than that dispute: Roosevelt’s effort to secure it without consulting congressional leaders triggered a damaging Senate revolt, exposed the limits of presidential pressure, and ended with the bill sent back to committee. For Harry S. Truman, the controversy was both a policy choice and an unusually personal test of how far the White House could take his support for granted.

Proposal and Presidential Strategy

In the first week of February 1937, Roosevelt revealed his plan to enlarge the Court. A landslide election had given him an exceptionally large congressional majority, and he appeared confident that he could reshape an institution whose rulings had obstructed parts of the New Deal. Yet he had neither consulted congressional leaders nor given them advance notice. The book presents that approach as a central blunder: increasing the Court’s size to influence its decisions damaged Roosevelt politically and created a crisis inside the Senate as well as between the branches.

The administration treated passage as a key to its wider legislative program. White House advisers argued that if the Court fight were won, everything else Roosevelt wanted would “fall into the basket.” That expectation magnified the stakes, but it also made the proposal a test of presidential influence. Roosevelt insisted that “The people are with me,” even as senators confronted strong public anger and resistance within his own party. By June, even Vice President Garner was so infuriated by the affair that he packed his bags and returned to Texas.

Senate Opposition and Truman’s Position

Opposition was fierce, and it crossed the Democratic Party’s internal divisions. Conservatives including Carter Glass and Bennett Clark resisted the bill, but so did senators previously regarded as reliable Roosevelt supporters. Connally and Wheeler led the fight against it. Senators who had backed the President found themselves caught between pressure from the White House and outrage at home. Glass predicted that opposition might be futile given Roosevelt’s popularity, yet declared that he would resist the proposal with all the strength he had left.

Truman, like Alben Barkley, chose to stand with Roosevelt, reasoning that the Court’s size had been changed before. He did not participate in the debate. Instead, he was occupied with railroad investigations, where Wheeler’s loss of interest in the work left Truman carrying more of it as subcommittee vice chairman. In June, amid the Court controversy, Truman delivered his longest and most daring Senate speech to that point: a preliminary report on the railroad investigations. His position on the Court nevertheless brought angry mail. Having announced his support, he was accused of being a Roosevelt stooge, and his headaches returned. He would have preferred to avoid the issue altogether.

The Majority-Leader Contest

The controversy became entangled with a sudden vacancy in Senate leadership. On July 14, Joseph Robinson, the majority leader who had been carrying Roosevelt’s campaign for the bill, died of a heart attack in his apartment across from the Capitol. The Court fight was deferred while Democrats chose a successor. The leading candidates were Barkley and the conservative Pat Harrison, and the choice threatened to shape the future of the New Deal in the Senate.

Roosevelt openly pressed for Barkley, writing a “Dear Alben” letter that referred to him as the “acting” majority leader. To senators, this seemed like arrogant interference in Senate business and provoked another bitter contest. White House pressure grew more direct: Senator William H. Dieterich, who had promised Harrison his vote, switched after being offered a say in the appointment of two federal judges. The White House also contacted Thomas J. Pendergast and asked him to tell Truman how to vote. In Truman’s account, no offer of patronage accompanied that request.

Truman told Pendergast that he had already promised Harrison his support and could not go back on his word. He later said that refusing James A. Aylward had not been especially difficult, but saying no to Pendergast was among the hardest things he had done. He believed this was the only time Pendergast had called him about a vote; normally, Pendergast conveyed his views by telegram. The book leaves Truman’s reason for backing Harrison unresolved: he liked Barkley and had no evident reason to oppose him, though the choice may have offered a way to show Roosevelt that his support could not be assumed.

The episode also exposed the insult Truman felt in the White House’s approach. Because officials had gone to Pendergast rather than speaking to him directly, Truman concluded that they still regarded him as the Senator from Pendergast. Unable to speak to Roosevelt, he told press secretary Steve Early that he was tired of being pushed around and treated like an office boy, and expected the consideration due to his office. Barkley, meanwhile, believed Truman had pledged him support. Barkley later recalled that Truman came to him and asked to be released from his promise because pressure to vote for Harrison was so great. He admired Truman’s willingness to face him directly rather than conceal the conflict behind a show of friendship.

Defeat and Political Consequences

On July 21, Democratic senators met in the Senate Office Building’s white marble Caucus Room and chose their majority leader by secret ballot. Barkley won by one vote. Truman immediately pledged him his support; the two became friends and allies thereafter. The narrow result made Truman’s directness consequential in the leadership struggle, even though the evidence does not establish how his vote affected the final tally.

The following day, the momentum behind the Court bill was gone. By a margin of fifty votes, the Senate sent it back to the Judiciary Committee, where it died. Roosevelt had suffered his first and worst defeat since taking office. Truman considered the outcome deserved: he thought the plan was a mistake and that Roosevelt had managed the fight very badly. The defeat thus joined a contested effort to reshape the Court with a broader lesson in the limits of presidential persuasion: a large electoral majority and forceful White House pressure could not overcome opposition when the strategy alienated senators whose support was needed.