Nixon’s Court: The Silent Majority and the Conservative Counterrevolution That Was

FAIN: FT-55325-07

Kevin Joseph McMahon
Trinity College (Hartford, CT 06106-3100)

With an eye toward ROE v. WADE (1973), most scholars and commentators have generally concluded that Richard Nixon’s campaign to turn back Warren Court-style liberal activism came up short. I suggest, however, that Nixon’s approach to the Supreme Court has been misunderstood and misjudged. First, when Nixon was constructing his judicial policy (defined to include appointments, legislation, and Justice Department action), politics rather than ideological purity dominated his thinking. Second, Nixon’s definition of conservatism with regard to altering judicial doctrine was quite limited, with his policy designed mainly to address the issues of “law-and-order” and school desegregation, not to unleash a complete counterrevolution in the law.

Associated Products

Nixon's Court (His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences) (Book)
Title: Nixon's Court (His Challenge to Judicial Liberalism and Its Political Consequences)
Author: Kevin J. McMahon
Abstract: In seeking to appeal to voters he would later call the "great silent majority'" presidential candidate Richard Nixon laid down a challenge to the Warren Supreme Court in 1968, blaming it for the nation's recent crime wave and the unrest plaguing American's urban core. Inspired by his success in the election, Nixon maneuvered during the course of his presidency to alter the Court in hopes of making it work for him. Most analysts, however, have deemed Nixon's challenge to the judicial liberalism of the Warren Supreme Court a failure--"a counterrevolution that wasn't." Nixon's Court offers an alternative assessment.
Year: 2011
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Type: Other
Type: Single author monograph

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