Supreme Court History Quizzes

This is a Trivia Quiz about Presidents and The Court:

 

1. Which President made the most appointments to the Court?

 

2. Which Presidents made no appointments to the Court?

 

3. Which President had his power to appoint Justices cut off by Congress?

 

4. Which President appointed a tenth Justice?

 

5. Which President, upon appointing a Chief Justice, told his Attorney General, "I cannot help but see the irony in the fact that I, who desired that office so much, should now be signing the commission to another man?"

 

6. Which President appointed his predecessor's nephew to the Supreme Court?

 

7. Which President said of a Supreme Court decision, that the Chief Justice had "made his decision, now let him enforce it"?

 

8. Which President "packed" the Supreme Court to have a decision overruled?

 

Presidents and the Court Answers:

1. George Washington, appointed three Chief Justices and eight Associate Justices.

 

2. William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Johnson, and Jimmy Carter. Of these, only President Carter served a full term.

 

3. Andrew Johnson. To deprive President Johnson of the opportunity of filing expected vacancies, Congress passed a law in 1866 providing that no vacancy on the Court was to be filled until the size of the Court was reduced to fewer than seven members. After President Grant took office, an 1869 statute raised the number of Justices to nine and authorized the new President to make necessary appointments.

 

4. Abraham Lincoln. "In 1863, as the Civil War dragged on, Republicans in Congress made a provision to increase support for the Union on the United States Supreme Court by authorizing the addition of a tenth seat." The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1993, p. 118 (Cushman ed. 1993). Lincoln appointed Stephen J. Field to the additional seat.

 

5. William Howard Taft, who also told his Attorney General at the time, "There is nothing I would have loved more than being Chief Justice of the United States." Of course, Taft finally got his wish when he was appointed Chief Justice in 1921.

 

6. John Adams, appointed Bushrod Washington, President Washington's nephew to the Court, in 1798.

 

7. Andrew Jackson is reported to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."The Jackson statement may be only apochryphal, James, The Life of Andrew Jackson 603 (1938).

 

8. In Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 603 (U.S. 1870), the Court, then composed of seven Justices, decided that Congress could not issue paper money as legal tender. President Grant then appointed two new Justices (Justice William Strong and Joseph P. Bradley) who were known to support the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts. After they took their seats, the Court overruled Hepburn v. Griswold, Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall. 457 (U.S. 1871). It was claimed by opponents that Grant had "packed" the court to secure the overruling.

 

So how did you do?