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Journal of Policy History 13.3 (2001) 397-404



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Book Review

Leadership and Results: Assessing Chief Justices of the United States

Richard Pacelle


Walter F. Pratt Jr. The Supreme Court Under Edward Douglass White, 1910-1921. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1999). Pp. 296. $39.95 (cloth).

Melvin I. Urofsky. Division and Discord: The Supreme Court Under Stone and Vinson, 1941-1953. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997). Pp. 298. $21.95 (paper).

Earl M. Maltz. The Chief Justiceship of Warren Burger, 1969-1986. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000). Pp. 303. $39.95 (cloth).

Lucas A. Powe Jr. The Warren Court and American Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2000. Pp. 566. $35.00 (cloth).

Although the Chief Justice of the United States is just one of nine members of the Supreme Court, the potential influence attributed to him is normally much greater. The Chief Justice is considered the first among equals and has some institutional resources to draw upon, most notably the authority to assign opinions when he is in the majority. Despite the presence of giants such as Joseph Story, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Hugo Black, William Douglas, and William Brennan, among others, we associate the Court with the person who sits in the center chair and presides.

How do we assess who was a good Chief Justice and who failed to meet a set of external standards? Typically analysts have relied on assessing leadership skills and the ability to marshal the Court. Are great Chief Justices born or made? Is a Chief Justice great because he [Begin Page 397] is a natural leader or does a propitious situation make him great? David Danelski argued that there were two forms of leadership: task leadership and social leadership.1 By virtue of his institutional station, the Chief Justice is in the best position to exert both forms of leadership. Most Chiefs, however, are not able to combine the two forms of leadership. Some exert social or task leadership and leave the other to one of the Associate Justices. A few Chief Justices are unable to exert either form of leadership and history remembers them as failures. Those few who were thought to have been both task and social leaders, a difficult combination of talents, are typically considered the best Chief Justices.

We also assess the Chief Justice by the output of "his Court." Did the Chief Justice preside over a time of doctrinal innovation or a major change in the underlying judicial philosophy of the generation? Analysts associate the Marshall Court with the creation of judicial power and the assertion of national power, the Taney Court with Dred Scott and the assertion of Dual Federalism, the Hughes Court with resistance to the New Deal, the Warren Court with Brown v. Board of Education, and the Burger Court as a curious combination of expansive rulings like Roe v. Wade and the gender decisions and retreats in criminal procedure and elsewhere.

The University of South Carolina Press has established a series on the Chief Justices of the United States. Three of those books, dealing with four Chief Justices, are included in this review, as well as an excellent book on the Warren Court by Lucas A. Powe Jr. If there is one message that comes through these four books, although it is implicit in many places, it is that the assessment of a Chief Justice and his Court is complicated. In addition to the dynamics attendant to leadership, the doctrinal footprints, and the dominant jurisprudential philosophy that concern analysts, there are other important factors that contribute to a more accurate assessment of a Chief Justice's stewardship of the Supreme Court. There are historical and institutional forces, external political events, the mix of cases and issues, and internal dynamics that define the context that a Chief Justice faces. History intimates that the great Chief Justice is the one who overcomes the institutional and political barriers to achieve success. These books suggest that the great Chief Justice may be the one who steps...

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