Four Horsemen (Supreme Court)

This page is about four conservative Supreme Court justices and four contemporary Washington powerbrokers. For other uses, see Four Horsemen.

The "Four Horsemen" was the nickname given to four conservative members of the United States Supreme Court in the 1930's who opposed the New Deal agenda of President Franklin Roosevelt. They were Justices James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, Willis Van Devanter, and Pierce Butler. They were opposed by the liberal "Three Musketeers" - Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Stone, with Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Justice Owen J. Roberts controlling the balance. Hughes was more inclined to join the liberals, but Roberts was often swayed to the side of the Horsemen.

In the 1935 term, the Four Horsemen, together with Roberts and Hughes, voided the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 (United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)); and in Carter v. Carter Coal, 298 U.S. 238 (1936), the Four together with Roberts voided legislation aimed at the coal industry recovery; the same line-up voided a New York minimum wage law for women and children in Morehead v. New York, 298 U.S. 587 (1936). The Court had also struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States 295 U.S. 495 (1935) the previous May, but that decision was unanimous, with Cardozo writing separately joined by Stone, and Brandeis joining the Horsemen, Roberts, and Hughes in an opinion written by the latter.

The Four Horsemen would ride to and from the Court together to coordinate positions and arguments. It was the success of the Horsemen in striking down New Deal legislation that led to Roosevelt's court-packing scheme. The "switch in time that saved nine" together with the retirement of Van Devanter in June 1937 and his replacement by Hugo Black ended the Four Horsemen's domination of the Court.

Around 2003, the nickname has surfaced again with respect to four contemporary Washington powerbrokers who may be shaping recommendations to President George W. Bush with respect to the Supreme Court nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. These individuals are: C. Boyden Gray, Edwin Meese III, Jay Sekulow, and Leonard Leo. [1]