The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government and Politics, 1835–1864 by Charles Grove Haines and Foster H. Sherwood offers the definitive study of the Taney Court and its place in the turbulent decades leading up to and including the Civil War. Originally begun by the distinguished constitutional historian Charles Grove Haines and completed after his death by his colleague Foster H. Sherwood, this volume builds on Haines’s meticulous case studies to provide a comprehensive analysis of how the Court both shaped and was shaped by the defining political conflicts of the era.

Covering topics from corporate rights and the commerce clause to state sovereignty and the institution of slavery, the book examines the Court’s reasoning in landmark cases such as *Charles River Bridge*, *Groves v. Slaughter*, *The Amistad*, and *Cooley v. Board of Wardens*. Central to the narrative is the Dred Scott decision, its searing dissent, and its profound consequences for American politics. The volume also explores Abraham Lincoln’s fraught relationship with the Court, the limits of judicial power under wartime executive authority, and the development of procedures for adjudicating boundary disputes between states. Throughout, Haines and Sherwood illuminate the interplay between constitutional doctrine, judicial leadership under Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, and the larger currents of Jacksonian democracy, sectional crisis, and civil war. Both a legal history and a study of institutional development, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government and Politics, 1835–1864 remains an indispensable resource for scholars of constitutional law, political science, and nineteenth-century American history.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1957.