Commentary The first, second, third, fourth, and fifth installments in this series traced how the Supreme Court responded to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to break constitutional limits and create a powerful federal government. After trying to balance the demands of FDR’s “New Deal” with the Constitution, the court successively abandoned the Constitution’s limits on federal spending, federal land ownership, and federal economic regulation. This installment and the next discuss how the court acquiesced in the suppression of civil liberties. 1937–1944: The Court Attacks Civil Liberties Most of the Constitution’s framers considered the document’s principal protection for liberty to be its limits on the federal government’s enumerated powers. The framers did, however, add some specific protections. And after the Constitution was ratified, Congress and the states added the Bill of Rights. Even so, the Constitution’s protections for civil liberty are not complete. For example, most modern Americans would be surprised …
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