Historic Hyde Park
Conference debates the separation of presidential and judicial powers

Speaking to the complex relationship between the executive and the judicial branches of government, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor called this “a remarkable time to be considering the issue of separation of powers and what it means in time of stress or war.”

O’Connor delivered the keynote address at the recent two-day Presidential Libraries Conference held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park.

Presented by the nation’s 12 presidential libraries ­ from Hoover to Clinton ­ and their foundations, the conference assembled a unique blend of brainpower and knowledgeable insiders. The attendees debated the presidential politics that in turn have helped shape Supreme Court appointments and decisions from the 1930s to the present day.

Participants included Allen Weinstein, archivist of the United States and Sharon Fawcett, assistant archivist for presidential libraries. National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg who moderated many of the conference sessions, called the presidential libraries “part of our national DNA.” O’Connor said, “I adore presidential libraries. I’ve visited a lot of them and its so much fun to go.”

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s granddaughter and co-chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, said, “It couldn’t be a more poignant moment for us to gather to consider the relationship of leadership and the judiciary, specifically the Supreme Court. We’ve been reading these last several days about events in Pakistan which shock and dismay us, as well they should. But we can’t even enter into that discussion with dignity if we first don’t look at ourselves.”

Former President George H.W. Bush, addressing the conference by video stated that the separate branches of government are a “subject that bears importantly on the lives of ordinary Americans, yet so few of our fellow citizens understand the many ways in which these two great branches of government have mutually shaped our lives and our history.”

Deliberating on the influence of the Supreme Court on civil rights, Alan Brinkley, provost of Columbia University, said, “The Supreme Court is in some respects the most respected of all of our governmental institutions ... Yet at the same time, as we know from our own recent history, the court is also always the center of controversy.”

Complex relationship

In her keynote speech, O’Connor spoke of an influential childhood encounter with Eleanor Roosevelt; “I will never forget that day, she made such a wonderful impression. I’ve met very few people in my life, a few like Nelson Mandela, Eleanor Roosevelt, who immediately on meeting them you know they’re special. And she was.”

O’Connor gave examples of four classic confrontations between the presidency and the Supreme Court beginning with Thomas Jefferson and Chief Justice John Marshall, which led to the landmark Marbury vs. Madison decision with its impact on judicial powers. O’Connor spoke of President Lincoln’s battle with Chief Justice Roger Taney when Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus during the Civil War and of FDR’s court expansion plan from which the court emerged “larger in influence, if not in numbers, and much more keenly aware of its sometimes tenuous, but always interesting, relationship with the presidency.”

She also referred to President Harry Truman’s 1952 seizure of the Youngstown steel mills when he expected the Supreme Court to back him but it did not. O’Connor ended on an optimistic note. “As we face the trials we do today -­ and we have some major ones with separation of powers issues ­ I think we can find hope in the dignity with which the presidents and the judiciary have emerged from even the rockiest episodes of the past.”

C. Boyden Gray, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, brought a broad perspective having clerked for Chief Justice Earl Warren and served as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. Gray, along with former White House Counsels John Dean (to President Nixon) and Beth Nolan (to President Clinton), represented the perspective of the Executive Branch. Comparing presidential powers during World War II and the present “war on terror,” Anthony Lewis, former columnist for The New York Times, felt that the “assertions of unilateral executive power have a unique danger that we ought to care about.”

Totenberg and Nolan said the comparison turned on an unspoken factor. In World War II the war was perceived to have an end in view. “The far reaching effects today make it different from any other (period),” Nolan said. Regarding the system of checks and balances, St. John’s University Law Professor John Q. Barrett, who helped assemble the conference, felt that many members of Congress today do not recognize their role in the separation of powers. Quizzed by Totenberg on how the government can avoid allowing perceived threats to lead to “things we’re going to be ashamed of,” Barrett said “I think the short answer is…we won’t know until later. When the executive branch fails I think is when it stops looking at its watch. When it says, ‘we are on a course, this is our course forever, the stakes are always the same.’ The stakes change.”

Upcoming Events at Historic Hyde Park

Nov. 30 ­ Open house at Vanderbilt Mansion on Route 9, from 6 to 9 p.m. Visitors enjoy the glitter and the gold of a gilded age holiday celebration as well as music and refreshments

Dec. 7 ­ Open house at the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site on Route 9G, from 6 to 9 p.m. Glimpse a typical Roosevelt family Christmas as it was celebrated during the 1950s.

Dec. 7 ­ 7 p.m. at the Henry Wallace Center on Route 9, the FDR Presidential Library and Museum will host a book talk and signing by Geoffrey C. Ward, co-author with Ken Burns of the acclaimed PBS series “The War” and the book of the same name.

Dec. 8 ­ From 1 to 5 p.m., the FDR Library and Museum and Teaching the Hudson Valley will present the second Children’s Book Festival with guest appearances by nationally known children’s book authors, Daniel and Jill Pinkwater, Don Estes and other Hudson Valley children’s authors. Children can meet the authors, have their photographs taken with Santa and prepare holiday greeting cards for the service men and women who serve on the USS Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Dec. 8 ­ From 6 to 9 p.m., open house at the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site. Passages will be read from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” a Roosevelt family tradition.

The same evening, an open house will be held at the Franklin D. Presidential Library and Museum, which will be decorated for the holidays. This free open house a chance to see the special exhibit, Freedom from Fear: FDR Commander in Chief, which closes on Dec. 31.

 

 

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