James Clark McReynolds

James Clark McReynolds lived from February 3, 1862 to August 24, 1946 and was an American lawyer and judge from Tennessee who served as United States Attorney General under President Woodrow Wilson and as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1914 until his retirement in 1941. He is best known today for his sustained opposition to Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal programs and for an abrasive personality that included documented antisemitism and racism. Born in Elkton, Kentucky, he practiced law in Tennessee after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, served as assistant United States attorney general under Theodore Roosevelt, and became known for his skill in antitrust cases. Wilson appointed him attorney general in 1913 and then nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1914 to fill the vacancy left by the death of Horace Harmon Lurton. In twenty six years on the bench he wrote five hundred and six majority opinions and one hundred fifty seven dissents, ninety three of them against the New Deal, and was part of the conservative Four Horsemen bloc that frequently voted to strike down New Deal programs. He wrote the majority opinions in Meyer v. Nebraska, United States v. Miller, Adams v. Tanner and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, and is sometimes included on lists of the worst Supreme Court justices due to his temperament and bigotry.