Fred M. Vinson

Frederick Moore Vinson lived from January 22, 1890 to September 8, 1953 and was an American attorney and politician who served as the thirteenth chief justice of the United States from 1946 until his death, one of the few Americans to have served in all three branches of the federal government. Before becoming chief justice he served as a United States representative from Kentucky, as a federal appellate judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and as United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1945 to 1946. Born in Louisa, Kentucky, he served briefly in the Army during World War I, then in Congress from 1924 to 1937, becoming an adviser to Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the D.C. Circuit in 1937, and after Truman became president he appointed Vinson Treasury Secretary, where Vinson negotiated the Anglo-American loan and presided over the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Truman appointed him chief justice in 1946 after the death of Harlan F. Stone. Vinson dissented in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer and ordered a rehearing of Briggs v. Elliott, later combined into Brown v. Board of Education. He remains the most recent chief justice nominated by a Democratic president.