Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-qxsvm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-06T14:37:44.363Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Constitutional Law in 1927–1928: The Constitutional Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the October Term, 1927

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Robert E. Cushman
Robert E. Cushman*
Affiliation:
Cornell University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A protective tariff is constitutional. While most of us—Democratic party platforms to the contrary notwithstanding—had suspected that this was true, the Supreme Court, curiously enough, never passed on the question until its decision in Hampton v. United States. In that case the plaintiffs attacked the validity of the Tariff Act of 1922 on two grounds. In the first place, the so-called flexible tariff provision embodied in Section 315 was alleged to authorize an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the President. That section provides, in substance, that when the President, upon investigation, finds that differences in the cost of production here and abroad of articles produced in this country are not equalized by the tariff duties fixed by the act, he shall thereupon fix such new rates as will equalize these differences. The Court had no difficulty in rejecting this contention under the authority of Field v. Clark, in which the reciprocity sections of the Tariff Act of 1890 were sustained. Chief Justice Taft, speaking for a unanimous Court, reviews the general theory of the separation of powers and the doctrine that legislative power may not be delegated. He emphasizes, however, that each department may properly call upon the others for assistance “so far as the action invoked shall not be an assumption of the constitutional field of action of another branch.” The scope and character of this assistance, furthermore, “must be fixed according to common sense and the inherent necessities of the governmental coördination.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 1929 , pp. 78 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1929

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 276 U. S. 394.

2 Act of Sept. 21, 1922, 42 Stat. at L. 858.

3 143 U. S. 649.

4 Act of Oct. 1, 1890, 26 Stat. at L. 567.

5 Act of July 4, 1789, 1 Stat. at L. 24.

6 8 Wall. 533.

7 276 U. S. 332.

8 Act of Deo. 17, 1914, 38 Stat. at L. 785.

9 269 U. S. 360.

10 249 U. S. 86.

11 247 U. S. 251.

12 259 U. S. 20.

13 259 U. S. 44.

14 268 U. S. 5. See comment in this Review, vol. 20, p. 84Google Scholar.

15 274 U. S. 289.

16 Feb. 24, 1919, 40 Stat. at L. 1057.

17 195 U. S. 27.

18 275 U. S. 142, and 276 U. S. 594.

19 Act of June 2, 1924, 43 Stat. at L. 313.

20 276 U. S. 440.

21 277 U. S. 274.

22 273 U. S. 70. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 85.Google Scholar

23 277 U. S. 438.

24 Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727.

25 275 U. S. 310.

26 256 U. S. 465.

27 Memorandum filed with Assembly Bill, Introductory No. 1614, printed No. 1817, p. 2. See also Messages of Jan. 2, 1924, N. Y. Legis. Doc. 147th Sess. 1924, No. 3, p. 40, and Jan. 7, 1925, N. Y. Legis. Doc. 148th Sess. 1925, No. 3, pp. 39, 40; Report of the Dept. of State Police for 1924, N. Y. Legis. Doc. 148th Sess. 1925, No. 50, p. 13.

28 275 U. S. 192.

29 Act of Feb. 14, 1917, 39 Stat. at L. 903.

30 Act of Oct. 28, 1919, 41 Stat. at L. 307.

31 275 U. S. 149.

32 276 U. S. 413.

33 Act of Dec. 17, 1914, 38 Stat. at L.785, as amended by Act of Feb. 24, 1919, 40 Stat. at L. 1057.

34 Supra, note 7.

35 259 U. S. 20.

36 277 U. S. 189.

37 272 U. S. 52. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 70.Google Scholar

38 Act of Aug. 29, 1916, 39 Stat. at L. 545.

39 242 U. S. 27.

40 Act of Mar. 4, 1925, 43 Stat. at L. 1259.

41 275 U. S. 347. The two cases were merged.

42 276 U.S. 71.

43 Clayton Act, October 15, 1914, 38 Stat. at L. 730; Capper-Volstead Act, February 18, 1922, 42 Stat. at L. 388; Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926, 44 Stat. at L. 802.

44 Minn. Wheat Growers Coöp. Marketing Assoc. v. Radke, 163 Minn. 403, 204 N. W. 314, 1925.

45 277 U. S. 183.

46 272 U. S. 365. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 94.Google Scholar

47 276 U. S. 272.

48 226 U. S. 137.

49 276 U. S. 154.

50 277 U. S. 350.

51 262 U. S. 522. See comment in this Review, vol. 18, p. 67.Google Scholar

52 273 U. S. 418. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 92.Google Scholar

53 275 U. S. 207.

54 275 U. S. 440.

55 276 U. S. 260.

56 274 U. S. 531. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 81.Google Scholar

57 277 U. S. 1.

58 268 U. S. 473. See comment in this Review, vol. 20, p. 100.Google Scholar

59 276 U. S. 182.

60 274 U. S. 352. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 102.Google Scholar

61 276 U. S. 13.

62 277 U. S. 88.

63 277 U. S. 61.

64 273 U. S. 510.

65 275 U. S. 78.

66 Vol. 22, p. 626.

67 Louisville Gas and Elect. Co. v. Coleman, 277 U. S. 32, deals with classification in taxation under the equal protection of the laws clause.

68 276 U. S. 174.

69 Butler v. Pennsylvania. 10 How. 402.

70 277 U. S. 163.

71 277 U. S. 537.

72 276 U. S. 123.

73 276 U. S. 245.

74 235 U. S. 610.

75 274 U. S. 554. See comment in this Review, vol. 22, p. 105.Google Scholar

76 275 U. S. 136.

77 277 U. S. 218.

78 276 U. S. 575.

79 276 U. S. 575.

Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.