Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes
Today’s Justice of the Day is: CHARLES EVANS HUGHES. Chief Justice Hughes was born on this day, April 11, in 1862.
Chief Justice Hughes was born in Glen Falls, New York, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States (for his terms as an Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the United States). He graduated from Brown University with an A.B in 1881, before going on to earn an LL.B. at Columbia Law School in 1884.
Immediately upon graduation from law school, Chief Justice Hughes launched his career in private practice in New York City, where he would work from then to 1891, 1893 to 1906, 1916 to 1921, and 1925 to 1930. He occasionally worked as an instructor at law schools in between stints in private practice, specifically his law school alma mater, where he was first a Professor of Law (from 1891 to 1893) and later a Special Lecturer (from 1893 to 1895), and New York University Law School, where he was a Special Lecturer (from 1893 to 1900). Following the turn of the 20th century, Chief Justice Hughes served as counsel to the New York Legislature’s Stevens Gas Commission (in 1905) and its Armstrong Insurance Commission (from 1905 to 1906). In 1906 he was Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. The following year Chief Justice Hughes began a three year-long term as Governor of New York, an office he would leave upon being appointed an Associate Justice of the SCUS, before later leaving the Court to run as the Republican Party’s candidate for President of the United States in the 1916 election (he lost to incumbent President Woodrow Wilson by a fairly narrow margin). He served as Secretary of State from 1921 to 1925, the year before he took office as a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, where he would remain until his appointment as Chief Justice.
Chief Justice Hughes was nominated to serve as an Associate Justice by President William Howard Taft on April 25, 1910, to a seat vacated by Justice David Josiah Brewer. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 2, and received his commission that day. Then-Associate Justice Hughes took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on October 10, and served out that part of his tenure on the White Court. His service in that capacity was terminated on June 10, 1916, due to his resignation. Chief Justice Hughes was nominated by President Herbert Hoover on February 3, 1930, to a seat vacated by Chief Justice Taft (the very same man who had appointed him to the SCUS in the first place). He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 13, and received his commission that day. Chief Justice Hughes took the oath for that position on February 24, and assumed senior status on June 30, 1941. His service was terminated on August 27, 1948, due to his death.
The failure of Chief Justice Hughes’ bid for the presidency meant that his primary legacy was his service at the SCUS, where he became especially influential during his time as the Court’s leader. He was one of two important swing votes (the other being Justice Owen Roberts) in cases related to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives, and was known for being somewhat more willing to side with the SCUS’s liberal wing on such issues than the relatively- conservative Justice Roberts. His crisp, well-crafted opinions and open-minded approach earned him high praise from virtually all of his colleagues on the bench, and he remains well-regarded in most legal circles today.