Commentary
The first, second, third, and fourth installments of this series described how the Constitution established a relatively small federal government with limited powers and how President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal challenged that plan. Initially, the Supreme Court tried to balance the New Deal with the Constitution. However, during the years from 1937 to 1944, the court dismantled most of the Constitution’s restraints on federal power. The first two casualties were limits on federal spending (1937) and on federal land ownership (1938).
