Willis Van Devanter

Willis Van Devanter
Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter
Willis Van Devanter
Born	17 4, 1859
Birthplace	Marion, Indiana, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Lawyer, jurist
Known for	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; member of the "Four Horsemen" conservative bloc
Education	University of Cincinnati (LL.B.)
Spouse(s)	Delice Burhans
Children	2

Willis Van Devanter (April 17, 1859 – February 8, 1941) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1911 to 1937. Born in the small Indiana city of Marion, Van Devanter carved out a legal and political career in the Wyoming Territory before ascending to the federal judiciary. Nominated to the Supreme Court by President William Howard Taft, he served on the bench for more than twenty-six years, becoming one of the longest-tenured justices of his era. Van Devanter was a staunch conservative and was identified as one of the "Four Horsemen," the bloc of conservative justices—alongside George Sutherland, James Clark McReynolds, and Pierce Butler—who consistently opposed much of the New Deal legislation advanced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s. His retirement in 1937, coming in the midst of Roosevelt's controversial court-packing plan, was a pivotal moment in American constitutional history. He was succeeded by Justice Hugo Black.

Early Life

Willis Van Devanter was born on April 17, 1859, in Marion, Indiana, to a family with roots in the legal profession. His father, Isaac Van Devanter, was a lawyer, and the family had Dutch ancestry. Growing up in Indiana during the years following the American Civil War, Van Devanter was exposed to the practice of law from an early age through his father's work.

Van Devanter's upbringing in the rural Midwest shaped his conservative temperament and his belief in limited government. Marion, the seat of Grant County, Indiana, was a modest community, and Van Devanter's early years were spent in a setting that valued self-reliance and adherence to law. His family's involvement in the legal profession provided him with both intellectual stimulation and a clear career path.

The young Van Devanter demonstrated academic ability and pursued his education with the aim of entering the legal profession, following in his father's footsteps. His formative years in Indiana left a lasting impression, though his ambitions would eventually carry him westward to the territories, where opportunities for advancement in law and politics were more abundant than in the established states of the East and Midwest.

Education

Van Devanter attended the University of Cincinnati Law School, where he earned his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree. The University of Cincinnati's law program provided Van Devanter with formal legal training that complemented the practical legal education he had received from his father. After completing his studies in Cincinnati, Van Devanter was admitted to the bar and initially practiced law in Indiana before relocating to the Wyoming Territory in 1884, drawn by the opportunities of the expanding American West.

Career

Early Legal and Political Career in Wyoming

Van Devanter moved to the Wyoming Territory in 1884, settling in Cheyenne, where he established a law practice. The Wyoming Territory was in a period of rapid development, and Van Devanter quickly became involved in both legal practice and territorial politics. His abilities as a lawyer and his alignment with the Republican Party led to swift professional advancement.

Van Devanter served as the city attorney of Cheyenne and was appointed to the position of chief justice of the Wyoming Territory Supreme Court in 1889, a post he held briefly before Wyoming achieved statehood in 1890. His tenure as territorial chief justice, though short, demonstrated his legal acumen and established his reputation as a capable jurist in the region.

Following Wyoming's admission to the Union, Van Devanter returned to private practice but remained active in Republican politics. He served as a member of the Wyoming territorial legislature and became an influential figure in the state's Republican Party. His political connections extended to the national level, and he developed relationships with prominent Republican leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt.

Van Devanter also served as an assistant attorney general in the United States Department of the Interior during the administration of President William McKinley, beginning in 1897. In this role, he dealt extensively with public lands issues, Indian affairs, and other matters relating to the administration of the western territories and states. His expertise in public lands law and his understanding of the legal complexities of western development made him a valuable asset to the federal government.

Federal Appellate Court

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt nominated Van Devanter to serve as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The seat had been newly established, and Van Devanter was confirmed to fill it. He took his seat on February 4, 1903, and served on the Eighth Circuit for nearly eight years.

During his tenure on the Eighth Circuit, Van Devanter handled a wide range of cases involving federal law, including matters related to public lands, railroads, mining claims, and other issues of particular importance to the western states that fell within the circuit's jurisdiction. He earned a reputation as a thorough and methodical jurist, though he was also known for the slow pace at which he produced written opinions—a tendency that would persist throughout his judicial career.

Van Devanter's service on the appellate bench brought him to the attention of national legal and political figures. His conservative judicial philosophy, combined with his deep knowledge of western land law and federal jurisdiction, made him a candidate for elevation to the nation's highest court.

Nomination and Confirmation to the Supreme Court

On December 12, 1910, President William Howard Taft nominated Willis Van Devanter to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to fill the vacancy created by the elevation of Edward Douglass White to the position of Chief Justice. Van Devanter was confirmed by the United States Senate and took the judicial oath of office on January 3, 1911.

Taft, himself a former judge and later a Chief Justice, valued Van Devanter's conservative jurisprudence and his expertise in federal jurisdiction and procedural matters. The nomination was part of Taft's broader effort to shape the federal judiciary along conservative lines, and Van Devanter's confirmation proceeded without significant opposition.

Supreme Court Tenure (1911–1937)

Van Devanter served on the Supreme Court for more than twenty-six years, from January 3, 1911, to June 2, 1937. During this extended tenure, he participated in some of the most consequential constitutional debates of the early twentieth century, including cases involving the scope of federal regulatory power, the rights of states, economic liberty, and the constitutionality of New Deal legislation.

Judicial Philosophy

Van Devanter's judicial philosophy was rooted in a conservative interpretation of the United States Constitution. He favored a strict construction of the Commerce Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and he was skeptical of expansive federal regulatory power. He believed that the Constitution imposed clear limits on the authority of both the federal government and the states to interfere with private economic activity, a view that aligned with the prevailing conservative legal thought of the Lochner era.

Despite his strong views on substantive matters, Van Devanter was perhaps most valued by his colleagues for his mastery of procedural and jurisdictional questions. He possessed an exceptional understanding of the technicalities of federal jurisdiction, and other justices frequently relied on his expertise in conference discussions. Chief Justice Taft, who joined the Court in 1921, considered Van Devanter one of the most valuable members of the Court for his ability to clarify complex jurisdictional issues.

Writing Difficulties

One of the most notable aspects of Van Devanter's tenure was his well-documented difficulty in producing written opinions. Despite his recognized brilliance in oral discussion and conference deliberations, Van Devanter produced far fewer written opinions than most of his colleagues. He was known to agonize over the wording and reasoning of his opinions, sometimes taking months to complete a single decision. This phenomenon, sometimes described as a form of "writer's block," meant that his contributions to the Court's written jurisprudence were disproportionately small relative to his influence in shaping the Court's decisions behind closed doors.

This difficulty persisted throughout his time on the bench. While Van Devanter authored several important opinions during his tenure, his overall output of majority opinions was among the lowest of his contemporaries. Nonetheless, his influence on the Court's deliberations was substantial, and his fellow justices—regardless of ideology—acknowledged his analytical gifts.

The "Four Horsemen" and the New Deal

Van Devanter's most prominent role in American constitutional history came during the 1930s, when he served as one of the "Four Horsemen"—the conservative bloc of justices who opposed much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislative program. The Four Horsemen consisted of Van Devanter, George Sutherland, James Clark McReynolds, and Pierce Butler. These four justices consistently voted to strike down federal and state economic regulations that they viewed as exceeding constitutional authority.

The Four Horsemen frequently formed a voting bloc with Justice Owen Roberts or Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes to create majorities that invalidated key New Deal measures. Among the major New Deal statutes struck down by the Court during this period were the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, both of which were central to Roosevelt's program for economic recovery during the Great Depression.

The conservative justices' opposition to the New Deal provoked a major constitutional confrontation. Roosevelt, frustrated by the Court's invalidation of his legislative agenda, proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, commonly known as the "court-packing plan." The plan would have allowed the president to appoint an additional justice for each sitting justice over the age of seventy who did not retire, up to a maximum of six additional justices. The proposal was widely viewed as an attempt to dilute the influence of the conservative bloc and secure a Court majority favorable to New Deal legislation.

Retirement and the Court-Packing Crisis

Van Devanter's retirement from the Supreme Court on June 2, 1937, came at a critical juncture in the court-packing controversy. His decision to step down—reportedly facilitated in part by legislation guaranteeing full salary for retired justices—gave Roosevelt his first opportunity to appoint a justice to the Supreme Court. The timing of Van Devanter's retirement, combined with the so-called "switch in time that saved nine" (Justice Owen Roberts's shift in voting alignment on key regulatory cases), effectively defused the court-packing plan, which was ultimately defeated in the Senate.

Roosevelt nominated Senator Hugo Black of Alabama to succeed Van Devanter. Black was confirmed by the Senate on August 17, 1937, and took his seat on the Court. Black's appointment marked a decisive shift in the Court's ideological composition, and over the following years the Court moved away from the conservative jurisprudence that Van Devanter and the Four Horsemen had championed.

Van Devanter's retirement thus represented a turning point in American constitutional law. The departure of one of the Four Horsemen opened the door for Roosevelt to begin reshaping the Court, a process that ultimately led to the judicial validation of expanded federal regulatory power and the end of the Lochner era.

Personal Life

Willis Van Devanter married Delice Burhans, and the couple had two children. The Van Devanters lived in Washington, D.C., during his long tenure on the Supreme Court. Van Devanter was known as a private individual who preferred to keep his personal affairs out of the public eye. He maintained connections to Wyoming throughout his life, and his years in the territory and state left a lasting imprint on his identity and legal outlook.

After his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1937, Van Devanter continued to reside in Washington, D.C. Under federal law, retired Supreme Court justices retained the ability to sit on lower federal courts by designation, and Van Devanter occasionally served in this capacity during his retirement years.

Van Devanter died on February 8, 1941, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 81. He was buried at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

Recognition

Van Devanter's role on the Supreme Court, and particularly his membership in the Four Horsemen, has been the subject of extensive historical and legal analysis. During his lifetime, he was respected by colleagues on both sides of the ideological divide for his mastery of federal jurisdiction and procedural law, even as his conservative substantive views drew criticism from supporters of the New Deal.

The Foundation for Economic Education, in a 2015 retrospective, described Van Devanter and the other members of the Four Horsemen as justices "who endured ridicule from the highest" levels of political power for their principled opposition to government expansion during the New Deal era.

Sterling Professor of Law Robert C. Post of Yale Law School published a comprehensive history of the Taft Court era, covering the period during which Van Devanter served alongside Chief Justice Taft. The work, published in 2024 after thirty-five years of research, provided detailed analysis of the internal dynamics of the Court during the 1920s, a period in which Van Devanter's influence on conference deliberations was substantial.

Van Devanter has been profiled in several major reference works on the Supreme Court, including collections published by Oxford University Press and other scholarly publishers.

The Oyez Project at the Chicago-Kent College of Law maintains a biographical profile of Van Devanter as part of its comprehensive archive of Supreme Court history.

Legacy

Willis Van Devanter's legacy in American constitutional law is defined primarily by his role as a conservative jurist during a transformative period in the nation's legal history. His twenty-six-year tenure on the Supreme Court spanned the era from the Progressive Era through the early New Deal, a period during which fundamental questions about the scope of federal power were contested before the Court.

As a member of the Four Horsemen, Van Devanter was part of the conservative resistance to the expansion of federal regulatory authority that characterized the New Deal. The Four Horsemen's opposition to Roosevelt's legislative program precipitated one of the most serious confrontations between the executive and judicial branches in American history—the court-packing crisis of 1937. Van Devanter's retirement that same year was instrumental in resolving the crisis and in enabling the ideological transformation of the Court that followed.

Historians and legal scholars have assessed Van Devanter's contributions to the Court from varying perspectives. Those who view the New Deal as a necessary and constitutionally legitimate response to the Great Depression have tended to characterize Van Devanter and his conservative colleagues as obstructionists who improperly used judicial power to block democratic governance. Those who are more sympathetic to limited-government principles have viewed Van Devanter as a principled defender of constitutional constraints on federal power.

Beyond his role in the New Deal controversies, Van Devanter's influence on the Court's internal workings—particularly his expertise in jurisdictional and procedural matters—was recognized by contemporaries as significant. His ability to shape outcomes in conference, even when he produced relatively few written opinions, meant that his influence was greater than his written record alone would suggest.

Van Devanter's career also illustrates the important role that western lawyers and politicians played in shaping the federal judiciary during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His path from the Wyoming Territory to the Supreme Court reflected the broader integration of the American West into the national legal and political framework.

His successor, Hugo Black, represented a fundamentally different approach to constitutional interpretation, and Black's appointment marked the beginning of a new era in Supreme Court jurisprudence. The contrast between Van Devanter's conservative constitutionalism and Black's more expansive view of federal power underscored the magnitude of the Court's transformation during the late 1930s.