charles evan hughes
chief justice
biography
An American jurist, Charles E. Hughes was born in Glens Falls, New York on April 11, 1862. The only son of Reverend David Charles Hughes and Mary Catherine Connelly Hughes, he was educated at Madison and Brown Universities and at Columbia Law School. Hughes’ practice of law in New York City was interrupted by two years of teaching at the Cornell University Law School from 1891 to 1893. Returning to the bar, he won public acclaim as director of investigations in to the gas lighting and insurance businesses for the New York State legislature.
His success in those assignments led to his election as governor of New York in 1906 in a race with William Randolph Hearst. He was reelected in 1908, though he had repeated clashes with the bosses of the Republican party. He was responsible for setting up two Public Service commissions for curbing race-track gambling and other reforms.
Hughes accepted a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1910 and within a few years became a distinguished member. In 1916, the Republican Party nominated him for president against his wishes and without his consent. Thus, he resigned from the court and made the race against President Woodrow Wilson as a candidate of the Republicans and Progressives, as he believed nobody should decline a nomination for that office. He was soon however led to defeat.
Hughes thus resumed the law practice the next year, and served as chairman of the Draft Appeals Board for New York City. At President Wilson’s request, Hughes also conducted an investigation into charges of inefficiency and scandal in the aircraft industry.
In 1921, Hughes was chosen as the Secretary of State by President Warren G. Harding and took over the problem of making a separate peace with Germany because of the rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. He took efforts to lead the United States into the League of Nations and the World Court, but his efforts were blocked by the Senate. He however succeeded in negotiating an agreement for the limitation in naval armament at the Washington Conference.
His suggestions for easing the reparations burden on Germany led to the Dawes Plan and the Young plan, also bringing a policy of "liquidating imperialism" in Latin America. In 1925, he resigned as Secretary of State and he was appointed as a member of the Permanent Court of International Justice in 1928. He was also head of the American delegations to the Pan American Conference.
Named chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1930 by President Hoover, his nomination brought an unsuccessful whirlwind of opposition in the Senate. The Hughes court found President Franklin Roosevelts’s National Recovery Administration, Agricultural Adjustment Administration, and other agencies as unconstitutional. Thus, President Roosevelt continued with his court-packing scheme and asked Congress for six additional justices on the Supreme Court bench.
