Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes Sr. (April 11, 1862 – August 27, 1948) was an American statesman, politician, academic, and jurist who served as the 11th chief justice of the United States from 1930 to 1941. A member of the Republican Party, he previously was the 36th governor of New York (1907–1910), an associate justice of the Supreme Court (1910–1916), and 44th U.S. secretary of state (1921–1925). As the Republican nominee in the 1916 presidential election, he lost narrowly to Woodrow Wilson.
For other people named Charles Evans Hughes, see Charles Evans Hughes (disambiguation).
Charles Evans Hughes
Frank B. Kellogg
William Howard Taft
- Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler
- Horace White
April 11, 1862
Glens Falls, New York, U.S.
August 27, 1948 (aged 86)
Osterville, Massachusetts, U.S.
Born to a Welsh immigrant preacher and his wife in Glens Falls, New York, Hughes graduated from Brown University and Columbia Law School and practiced law in New York City. After working in private practice for several years, in 1905 he led successful state investigations into public utilities and the life insurance industry. He won election as the governor of New York in 1906, and implemented several progressive reforms. In 1910, President William Howard Taft appointed Hughes as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. During his tenure on the Supreme Court, Hughes often joined Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in voting to uphold state and federal regulations.
Hughes served as an associate justice until 1916, when he resigned from the bench to accept the Republican presidential nomination. Though Hughes was widely viewed as the favorite in the race against incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, Wilson won a narrow victory. After Warren G. Harding won the 1920 presidential election, Hughes accepted Harding's invitation to serve as secretary of state. Serving under Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he negotiated the Washington Naval Treaty, which was designed to prevent a naval arms race among the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. Hughes left office in 1925 and returned to private practice, becoming one of the most prominent attorneys in the country.
In 1930, President Herbert Hoover appointed him to succeed Chief Justice Taft. Along with Associate Justice Owen Roberts, Hughes emerged as a key swing vote on the bench, positioned between the liberal Three Musketeers and the conservative Four Horsemen. The Hughes Court struck down several New Deal programs in the early and the mid-1930s, but 1937 marked a turning point for the Supreme Court and the New Deal as Hughes and Roberts joined with the Three Musketeers to uphold the Wagner Act and a state minimum wage law. That same year saw the defeat of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, which would have expanded the size of the Supreme Court. Hughes served until 1941, when he retired and was succeeded by Associate Justice Harlan F. Stone.
Return to private practice[edit]
Hughes stayed on as Secretary of State in the Coolidge administration after the death of Harding in 1923, but he left office in early 1925.[65] He once again returned to his law firm, becoming one of the highest-earning lawyers in the country. He also served as a special master in a case concerning Chicago's sewage system, was elected president of the American Bar Association, and co-founded the National Conference on Christians and Jews.
State party leaders asked him to run against Al Smith in New York's 1926 gubernatorial election, and some national party leaders suggested that he run for president in 1928, but Hughes declined to seek public office. After the 1928 Republican National Convention nominated Herbert Hoover, Hughes gave Hoover his full support and campaigned for him across the United States. Hoover won the election in a landslide and asked Hughes to serve as his Secretary of State, but Hughes declined the offer to keep his commitment to serve as a judge on the Permanent Court of International Justice.[66]