Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2009 Issue
Legal Works from The Lawbook Exchange
The Vinson Supreme Court in 1953 with President Eisenhower.
Lysander Spooner had an opposing view of one power of Congress enumerated in the Constitution to just about everyone else. The Constitution gives Congress the power "to establish Post Offices," which most people interpreted as an exclusive right. Spooner disagreed, and set up a competing mail service between Boston and Washington. He believed 25 cents was too much (and certainly 25 cents in 1844 was a lot more money than 43 cents today). The government did not accept Spooner's interpretation of the Constitution, and shut him down. Spooner responded with this pamphlet: The Unconstitutionality of the Laws of Congress Prohibiting Private Mails. As we all know, he lost this argument, but Spooner has been credited with bringing down the price of mail. Item 88. $650.
Item 96 is a photograph of President Eisenhower with the nine justices of the Supreme Court. It was the calm before the storm. The year was 1953, and the Court was about to consider the question of school segregation brought up in Brown v. Board of Education. Standing next to President Eisenhower in this 1953 picture is the Chief Justice, but he is not Earl Warren. The Chief Justice was Fred Vinson, and he was not believed to be favorable to overturning the earlier Supreme Court ruling that upheld segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. However, the Court turned shortly after this photograph was taken. Vinson suffered a heart attack later that year, dying suddenly and unexpectedly. He was replaced by Warren, who was able to convince his fellow justices to follow a different path, outlawing segregation in the public schools. $125.
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