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Great Depression And The New Deal Term Paper

¶ … Great Depression and the New Deal Brinkley, Alan the Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. 4th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill 2004.

FDR Question

There is almost something comical about the level of the outrage expressed by contemporary Democrats regarding the appointment of John Roberts, President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. While not to mitigate the importance of the Supreme Court as enforcing the law of the land, the fact that John Roberts might -- gasp -- interpret the constitution with a more strict constructionalist viewpoint than his moderate predecessor seems far less hubristic in comparison to President Roosevelt's efforts to stuff the U.S. Supreme Court with new numbers of justices. Roosevelt openly wished to increase the number of justices specified in the Constitution for the highest court of the land to make it easier for him to enforce his own legislative policies. While Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted his court-packing scheme with an honorable intent, to appoint justices who would not declare the programs he believed were necessary to save the nation unconstitutional, such an action seems almost kingly in the extreme, given the specifications in the American Constitution for the number of Supreme Court justices.

However, in the recent American history of Roosevelt's day, other aspects of the American Constitution had been altered to an extreme degree. The election of the U.S. Senate directly by the people of the states rather than by the state senates of the land, the rapid-fire institution and repeal of Prohibition, and the creation of a federal income tax were all seismic legal as well as social changes that stirred political tumult in the land. Also, many social radicals across the American nation demanded even more radical legal reforms than...

One of the strengths of the Supreme Court is its fictional impermeability to the pulse of the nation -- as many justices appointed by conservative presidents, such as Justices O'Connor and Justice Brennan have shown their intellectual independence once insulated on the court. A president may desire to put his stamp upon the court, but this is impossible, given the capriciousness of human nature and the lifelong nature of a Supreme Court appointment. Regardless of the president's own desires or the so-called political pulse of the nation, or even the Senate's grilling, ultimately it is this life-long justice's ability to evolve and render reasonable legal opinions in response to the law as a lawyer, justice, and character that matters in terms of his or her qualifications. The quality of reasoning, rather than the content of the opinion of the justices is the best measure.
Questions on Chapters entitled "The Great Depression" and "The New Deal"

1.What caused the stock market crash is 1929? Do you see any way this economic catastrophe could have been avoided? Why do you think there is little historical consensus as to the exact causes?

The crash was caused by the preceding widespread speculative fever in America. For the first time, as the average price of most stock increased dramatically, the 'average' middle class consumer began to buy shares of stock in the market. Lured by the promise of easy wealth, the daily volume of stock traded on the market increased dramatically while not enough profits were put back into business in the form of real, long-term capital investments. Whether the brokers were to blame, the new consumerism, or the government for not stepping in to stem the bubble remains in…

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Americans responded with hope and optimism to the first coherent plan to elevate the American nation out of the depression. Even today, the durability of Roosevelt's attempt to construct the foundations of the federal social welfare system and for the federal government to take responsibility for helping to elevate the quality of life of ordinary American people shows his greatness as a president.

8.Explain the evolution of American diplomacy toward Japan between 1921 and 1941. Was war between the U.S. And Japan inevitable? If so why and if not how might it have been avoided?

While not inevitable, war between the U.S. And Japan seemed unavoidable after Japan so securely allied itself with Germany, causing American diplomacy to become increasingly hostile after an initially sympathetic period after the end of the first World War -- had America become part of the League of Nations, perhaps, and mitigated some of Japan's regional, territorial, and economic concerns, only then could the Japan and Nazi union been avoided.
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