Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment by Brad Snyder

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'Democratic Justice' by Brad Snyder

Not unlike Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Felix Frankfurter remained on the U.S. Supreme Court past the point where less driven people would have retired, citing their health. Frankfurter served on the high court from 1939 to 1962 and has become an object of controversy among historians and pundits who think in narrow categories and try to squeeze reality into their own small boxes. Georgetown University constitutional law professor Brad Snyder, in his massive and accessible biography of Frankfurter as a jurist and a person, tries to set the record straight through close examination of the justice’s opinions.

In the askew political language of the 21st century, Frankfurter would sit somewhere at the embattled center. He believed that far-reaching social and political change should come from elected legislators and executives, not the Supreme Court. He believed the U.S. Constitution provided “a broad outline that allowed the federal government and the states to regulate the economy and help people.” He favored reform but wanted it to arrive through the democratic process, not the rulings of the courts.

The author shows how Frankfurter’s influence extended beyond his Supreme Court opinions through generations of former students at Harvard and law clerks who entered academia and public service. Democratic Justice is a formidably researched and reasoned account of a cautiously liberal jurist, an eloquent man who carefully measured the power of the judiciary. “For many years, Frankfurter was on the wrong side of history. As the Court has become more interventionist, however, some scholars have begun to reassess Frankfurter’s more modest, incremental, and democratic approach to judging,” Snyder concludes.