In order to analyze the trend of the United States Supreme Court from the beginning of its 1936 term in October, 1936, to the end of the 1945 term in June, 1946, it is first necessary to state the situation at the beginning of this period.

Before the pressure of our last great depression, the United States Supreme Court had found restrictions to exist upon the powers of the national government, and had found barriers against governmental power, both national and state. These barriers were found primarily in a small number of cases: Ribnik v. McBride, 277 U. S. 350 (1928), which restricted price regulation; Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U. S. 251 (1923), in which federal power was held not to extend to the shipment of child-made goods in interstate commerce; Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U. S. 525 (1923), in which it was held that a statutory regulation of minimum wages for women was violative of due process of law; Adair v. United States, 208 U. S. 161 (1908) and Coppage v. Kansas, 236 U. S. 1 (1915), which sustained the so-called “yellow-dog” contract, and held that it was unconstitutional for either state or nation to forbid the employer's contracting that his employees should not belong to unions.

These opinions have now been overruled or explicitly disregarded and the Court has expressed the further opinions that state powers in no way restrict the powers granted to the nation; and that the national power to spend for the “general welfare of the United States” is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.

One of the most vexing questions posed over time by political scientists is: Why do democratic polities develop in some countries, but not in others? In his seminal work Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1986), still read today by most students of comparative politics, Barrington Moore strove to answer that question by examining the historical process in which commercial agriculture emerged in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China. In his book, Fernando López-Alves takes the framework that Moore provided and applies it to three countries in Latin America whose trajectories in the nineteenth century led to different polities and experiences with democracy—Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay (he also makes brief reference to Paraguay and Venezuela as so-called control cases). While conceding the need for “further testing” (p. 220), he arrives at conclusions that differ significantly from Moore's, even though he does not attempt to dismiss that earlier work.

The Federal Constitution provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, and vests in the Federal Supreme Court the ultimate power to determine what is due process. The legality of any interference with person or property may always be questioned in judicial proceedings, and therefore depends, in the last analysis, upon its conformity to a rule of law laid down by the courts.

The most usual method of disturbing the individual in the enjoyment of his personal and property rights is by judicial proceedings, and no person without authority of some branch of the government can constitutionally imprison him or permanently appropriate his property by any other means. Conceivably, the doctrine might have obtained that the government and its agents acting in official capacities must also have recourse to the courts in any undertaking affecting private rights. But “due process” has been interpreted as meaning process in conformity with certain fundamental principles, rather than any specific and required mode of procedure. The courts have held that, in certain instances, the government may interfere with private rights through the action of its administrative agents, and that such agents may be vested with the power of final and conclusive determination of the facts on which their action is based.

Although two general elections were held in Germany during 1924, the political situation remained confused. The election of May resulted in gains for both the extreme right and the extreme left; the one of December registered a reaction against both extremes. However, neither of these contests was sufficiently conclusive to indicate clearly the direction in which the currents of public opinion were moving. The result has been a remarkable series of cabinet crises, the latest of which it took more than a month to settle.

The Meiji constitution was in effect from November 29, 1890, until May 3, 1947, a period of fifty-six years and approximately five months. The present constitution, which may be known after the demise of Emperor Hirohito as the Showa constitution, was proclaimed in effect by Premier Yoshida Shigeru in the presence of Hirohito on May 3, 1947. The proclamation was read from a platform on the Palace plaza in Tokyo. The audience of five thousand people which stood in the rain before the platform was small in comparison with the huge crowd that surged around the imperial carriage on November 3, 1946, following the official ceremony of promulgation; but it was equally enthusiastic in its demonstration of loyalty. On both occasions, it was apparent that the embarrassed-looking, bespectacled little Emperor, and not the constitution, was the center of popular interest.