Carter v. Carter Coal Co.

Justice Sutherland wrote the opinion of the Court, which paid scant attention to the dire conditions then extant in the coal mining business. Instead, it concentrated on an argument that had dogged the nation since its foundation: the competition between states' rights and federal power.

The ruling and firmly established principle is that the powers which general government may exercise are only those specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and such implied powers as are necessary and proper to carry into effect the enumerated powers. Whether the end sought to be attained by an act of Congress is legitimate is wholly a matter of constitutional power and not at all of legislative discretion.

According to the Court, the commerce power, which the president and Congress saw as the constitutional rationale for the coal act, did not apply. As it had done many times before, the Court distinguished direct effects on interstate commerce, which Congress could control, from indirect ones, which it could not. Here, the effects were deemed indirect because coal mining was "manufacturing" which took place in a set location, not commerce or trade which crossed state lines. If there was to be regulation of coal mining, therefore, the Constitution mandated that it take place at the state level. The coal act was struck down.

Since 1933, when Roosevelt took office, the Supreme Court had developed a record of opposing most New Deal legislation that came before it. In frustration, Roosevelt developed a plan for "packing" the Court with justices who would be more amenable to his economic plan for rescuing the country. The plan ultimately failed, but the composition of the Court began to change nonetheless. In 1937, one of the ultra-conservative "Four Horsemen" (named for the Biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that brought destruction to the land), holdovers from the preceding Taft Court, Justice Van Devanter, announced his retirement, opening up the first of seven vacancies Roosevelt was to fill over the next few years. And in the spring of 1937, Justice Roberts switched his voting posture toward the New Deal. Starting with National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937), the Court abandoned its embrace of states' rights and the Tenth Amendment, and took up the Commerce Clause and the New Deal agenda.