Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty

Roosevelt had won a solid victory, with 57 percent of the popular vote, and the Democratic Party had majorities in both the Congress and Senate, enough to pass New Deal legislation. However, some of the legislation raised constitutional issues and ended up in the Supreme Court, where Roosevelt’s electoral mandate cut much less ice.
    One of the key pillars of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act. Title I focused on industrial recovery. President Roosevelt and his team believed that restraining industrial competition, giving workers greater rights to form trade unions, and regulating working standards were crucial to the recovery effort. Title II established the Public Works Administration, whose infrastructure projects include such landmarks as the Thirtieth Street railroad station inPhiladelphia, the Triborough Bridge, the Grand Coulee Dam, and the Overseas Highway connecting Key West, Florida, with the mainland. President Roosevelt signed the bill into law on June 16, 1933, and the National Industrial Recovery Act was put into operation. However, it immediately faced challenges in the courts. On May 27, 1935, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Title I of the act was unconstitutional. Their verdict noted solemnly, “Extraordinary conditions may call for extraordinary remedies. But … extraordinary conditions do not create or enlarge constitutional power.”
    Before the Court’s ruling came in, Roosevelt had moved to the next step of his agenda and had signed the Social Security Act, which introduced the modern welfare state into the United States: pensions at retirement, unemployment benefits, aid to families with dependent children, and some public health care and disability benefits. He also signed the National Labor Relations Act, which further strengthened the rights of workers to organize unions, engage in collective bargaining, and conduct strikes against their employers. These measures also faced challenges in the Supreme Court. As these were making their way through the judiciary, Roosevelt was reelected in 1936 with a strong mandate, receiving 61 percent of the popular vote.
    With his popularity at record highs, Roosevelt had no intention of letting the Supreme Court derail more of his policy agenda. He laid out his plans in one of his regular Fireside Chats, which was broadcast live on the radio on March 9, 1937. He started by pointing out that in his first term, much-needed policies had only cleared the Supreme Court by a whisker. He went on:
    I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you. We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis. Soon after, with the authority of the Congress, we asked the nation to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to the government of the United States. Today’s recovery proves how right that policy was. But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court its constitutionality was upheldonly by a five-to-four vote. The change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great nation back into hopeless chaos. In effect, four justices ruled that the right under a private contract to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an enduring nation.
    Obviously, this should not be risked again. Roosevelt continued:
    Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a three-horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people so that their field might be plowed. The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government—the Congress, the executive, and the courts. Two of the horses, the Congress and the executive, are pulling in unison today; the third is not.
    Roosevelt then pointed out that the U.S. Constitution had not actually endowed the Supreme Court with the right to challenge the constitutionality of legislation, but that it had assumed this role in 1803. At the time, Justice Bushrod Washington had stipulated that the Supreme Court should “presume in favor of [a law’s] validity until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond all reasonable doubt.” Roosevelt then charged:
    In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policymaking body.
    Roosevelt claimed that he had an electoral mandate to change this situation and that