i'm -- i did a book on a liberal president and a conservative court. have you ever heard of any of those? well, of course you have. but it's not the present liberal president and a conservative court. it is the president franklin roosevelt and the hughes court of the 1930s. indeed, it was 75 years ago this month that franklin roosevelt announced his court packing plan which is the subject of much of my book. i'll talk to in a moment. the clash between roosevelt and hughes at a critical time in american history is a great story and an important one. also it raises questions that were important 75 years ago and are important today. one being whether life tenured justices, conservative justices of the supreme court can thwart the popular will. alternatively, whether a popularly elected president can try to bend the court to his political policies. and those are questions and issues that are with us today as they were 75 years ago. first let me tell you a little bit about roosevelt and hughes who were remarkable leaders of the 20th century. they had a great deal in common. both were born in new york. both were only children to doting parents. both were ivy league educated. roosevelt went to harvard and hughes went to brown. both were two term reformed governors of new york. so that was what they have in common. now, they had a good deal that they did not have in common, as well. roosevelt was raised in gilded splendor on an estate in duchess county, new york, in hyde park. his parents, james and sarah roosevelt, took franklin to europe on a very luxurious extended summer tour every summer. they sent him to a prep school which was a prep school for rich boys before matriculating to mainly to harvard. so he, roosevelt, had a very, very comfortable life. hughes on the other hand was the son of a baptist minister who preached in upstate new york and also in new jersey. they were a family of very modest means and hughes was essentially home taught. partly that can be somewhat deceptive. his parents were both quite well educated and they were very, very vigorous teachers. and they taught charlie as he was called as a boy foreign languages and literature and history and math. and he towed the line. literally. his mother schooled him on mathematics. and hughes himself read deeply and widely on his own. and indeed, he only had really one year of formal schooling before he graduated from ps-35 in new york city at the age of 12. and he wanted to go to college, but he inquired and realized he couldn't go to nyu until he was 14. so he took a year off and in the meantime, a friend told him about madison college which is now colgate in upstate new york, in clinton, new york. and at the age of 14, little charlie, getting taller now, went to colgate. and made superior grades. became restless and transferred to brown university where he was elected to phi beta kappa in his junior year and graduated third in his class. so you can see that his trajectory was slightly different from roosevelt. hughes was a prodigy. he had a photographic memory and as i said, he was a superior student, even before he went to school. and continued throughout his career. on the other hand, franklin roosevelt, to talk about the differences and the contrast, was quite an indifferent student at harvard. made okay grades, but nothing special. and his great interest was the harvard crimson, the newspaper at harvard. so he didn't spend too much time studying, we think. and then he, like hughes, went off and studied law at columbia law school in new york city. hughes of course was at the top of his class. made the highest grade ever recorded on the new york bar. and franklin actually flunked a couple of courses, never finished, but did pass the bar, the new york bar. hughes went on to be a brilliant lawyer in private practice, but also made his name as an investigator of corruption and mismanagement in the utilities and insurance fields. and he was a very cool, very tough investigator. one very indignant ceo of an insurance company when the question got very, very tough said to hughes, sir, we are missionaries serving the public interest. and hughes said that he was looking into what seemed to be an exorbitant salary. he said, yes, but the question still comes back to the salaries of the missionaries. and he just kept boring in. and he made such a great impression on everybody that it catapulted into politics. he was elected governor of new york, republican. and re-elected. franklin, on the other hand, never really cared for the practice of law. he practiced a short time. never really liked it. he was really waiting for his main chance and to show his great talent, which was in politics. so you can see the contrast between the two of them as they went through their early careers. their careers began to intersect in 1916 and that's when franklin was now assistant secretary of the navy. he had consciously patterned his career on his distant cousin, theodore roosevelt. roosevelt had been elected to the state legislature, the new york legislature, as was franklin. and t.r. had become assistant secretary of the navy, as now had fdr. all that was left was for fdr to become vice president and president because that's what happened to tr, teddy roosevelt, after serving in the cabinet as assistant secretary of the navy, then went on to become vice president and president of the united states. and in 1916, roosevelt was assistant secretary of the navy. hughes had been appointed to the court as associate justice by president william howard taft. but he resigned in 1916 to become the republican candidate for president. and he ran against woodrow wilson. ran a dreadful campaign. he was the odds-on favorite, but he ultimately lost california by 4,000 votes and therefore the election. he went to bed the night of the election thinking that he had won. franklin roosevelt, who was a big wilson supporter, went to bed thinking that hughes had won. and the next morning the returns from the midwest and particularly california came in and it turned out that wilson won the election just barely. roosevelt continued as assistant secretary of the navy and then in 19 -- and hughes went back to private practice in new york city. roosevelt in 1920 became the vice presidential candidate of the democratic party running with governor james cox of ohio. they got trounced by calvin coolidge and warren harding and calvin coolidge in the republican party. and at the same time, after harding was elected, he appointed hughes secretary of state. one year later, their fortunes seemed to have one going up, one going down. hughes became an extraordinarily successful secretary of the state. he convened a disarmament conference in washington in 1921. and he negotiated the reduction of the tonnage of warships of the three major naval powers, being the united states, great britain, and japan at that time. it was a great triumph for him. roosevelt, on the other hand, in 1921 was paralyzed from the waist down with polio. what would seem to be a very promising career, there was talk in 1920 that roosevelt would be the democratic nominee for president in 1924 or 1928. but he was paralyzed. it looked like his career was over. so you have hughes going up, and roosevelt going down. by 1924 roosevelt with that indomitable spirit began to think of a political career yet again and he was asked to nominate al smith at the democratic convention at madison square garden in 1924, which he did. he had braces all the way up and down his legs. he went to the podium on the arm of his 16-year-old son, james. and of course tried to make it look effortless. it wasn't. as he made his way to the podium. but then he gave a great speech talking about the happy warrior taken from a wadsworth poem and the crowd erupted. they were just deliriously happy and they were clapping not just for al smith, but certainly for franklin roosevelt as well. and four years later, roosevelt was elected governor of new york. and in 1930, he was re-elected by a landslide. 1930, president herbert hoover appointed hughes chief justice of the united states. so you can see they are beginning to come together. of course, by 1930, there was great talk of roosevelt as the democratic nominee for president in 1932. so in 1932, of course, he campaigned against hoover and beat him very badly. and in 1933, march of 1933, franklin roosevelt and charles evans hughes exchanged letters. and franklin roosevelt wanted to know if he could recite the entire oath, not just saying "i do." and in asking hughes if that was okay, he remarked that it was very interesting he thought that one former new york governor would be administering the oath to another new york governor and they each expressed great respect for each other and look forward to their association said hughes in a common enterprise. so roosevelt is inaugurated president in 1933. by this time hughes had made a very strong record as a civil rights and libertarian. he wrote some very important decisions protecting the freedom of the press for example. and freedom of association. but what got him and roosevelt on a collision course was the constitutional challenges to the new deal legislation. particularly in 1935 and 1936, the hughes court began to strike down one piece of new deal legislation after another. now hughes was actually a centrist. he was neither a conservative, nor a liberal. he was a centrist. but he wanted in the worst way to keep the court together and try to project an image of stability and integrity. so he tried to mask the court when he could. and sometimes he could. for example, the court unanimously struck down the national recovery act administration, which was the new deal legislation trying to spur the industrial sector of the economy. but he was not so successful with when the court struck down the agricultural adjustment act which was the act to try to spur the agricultural economy. so sometimes hughes had most of the court with him and sometimes he didn't. and he sort of went back and forth. he tried to again project the notion of stability on the part of the court and it -- his nuanced treatment of the constitutional case went right past franklin roosevelt. he was just furious. he was furious over every single decision in which the court made up of four ideological conservatives and basically three liberals. the liberal wing led by justice louis brandeis but also justice benjamin cordoza. and hughes and his fellow hoover appointee were sort of in the middle. but roosevelt won re-election in a landslide in 1936. and he'd been thinking about doing something about this conservative court for a long time. he thought about a constitutional amendment. he thought about various kinds of statutes that might limit the court. and even what he -- a court packing plan. a court packing plan in which he would appoint additional justices who would be more sympathetic to the new deal legislation. so in early 1937, on the heels of this very impressive re-election victory, roosevelt announced a court packing plan. it was in february of 1937. 75 years ago. and his plan was he was concerned, he said, that the justices on the court were rather worn down and too old and they need some new justices who had a little more energy, who he would of course appoint. it turned out -- and his proposal was, he would be able to appoint one justice for every justice over 70 years old. it turned out six of the justices were over 70 years old, including chief justice hughes. so -- but nobody was really fooled by roosevelt and his proposal. everybody saw it for what it was. it was an attempt by him to undercut the conservative court and try to restore the new deal constitutionally. and hughes, who of course said nothing publicly, was furious. and he was asked by the senate judiciary committee if he would write a letter, which he did. it was a seven-page letter in which he documented how that court was completely up to date. he also said that if there were additional justices, if the court came to 15 justices, it would slow down their work rather than speed it up because there would be more conferences and more opinions and it would take more time. so he very emphatically rejected the idea that this court packing plan was a good idea. and the plan was resoundingly defeated. later, roosevelt, in grudging admiration for hughes, said that he was the best politician. best politician in the country. he just had a deal with one of the most popular presidents in all of our history, and he very effectively did that. what's interesting is from 1937 to 1940, both roosevelt and hughes continued to lead. they did not seek leadership. roosevelt had been defeated. his court packing plan had been defeated. hughes was virtually inundated with new appointees. roosevelt appointed five members to the court in less than three years. from 1937 to 1940. so hughes was surrounded by new appointees, all loyal new dealers. and yet hughes himself continued to lead that court. felix frankfurter who had been a confidant of justice stone during the worst part of the destruction of the new deal by the conservative court thought that hughes -- he was just scathing in his criticism with hughes. but once he got on the court, he considered hughes one of the great justices of all time. so hughes continued to lead, even though he was outnumbered on the court by roosevelt appointees, had great admiration from all of his new colleagues and he basically ushered in the new constitutional era in which the court began to expand civil rights and liberties, which is something he cared dearly about. and they began to defer to economic and social legislation. roosevelt never gave up. he was still mad over his defeat on the court packing plan. he was as angry as he could be. he refused to talk to some of the senators who had been instrumental in defeating him. but then he got on with the business, particularly in '38 and '39, of trying to get aid to the allies, and particularly great britain. and it was very difficult because facing isolationist congress and some of those who opposed his giving aid to great britain were some of them who opposed his court packing plan, too. but he and people like burton wheeler of montana. but roosevelt was up to the challenge and he outmaneuvered him and he was able to get aid to churchill before the u.s. entered world war ii. and i think it was terribly important. so hughes then retires from the court in 1941. and, of course, we know that roosevelt continued and was elected to a fourth term in 1940 and really, with churchill, was instrumental, i think, in seeing us toward an allied victory. towards the end of his life, he was really very, very sick, but nonetheless, he refused to give in. he never let anybody know he was as sick as he was. and then he died in 1945. there's a photograph in my book, on fdr and chief justice hughes is of hughes and his wife antoinette after the funeral service at the white house and hughes looks absolutely distraught, which suggests to me that he really, despite their clashes, their friction, he had great respect and affection for franklin roosevelt. and i know it's very clear from the documentation that roosevelt did for hughes. so it seems to me that now we move forward just slightly to 2012. and i'll suggest certain parallels between the two presidents and the courts, and maybe some differences. and then i'll open it up for questions from you. first the parallels. well, roosevelt, like president obama, was a reform democratic president. and both of them were willing to challenge the court when they thought their decisions were wrong. certainly franklin roosevelt did at some length, and over a long period of time. obama showed at his state of the union in 2010 that he was willing to challenge the justices who were sitting right in front of him on the campaign finance, the citizens united case. i have no doubt that if the court, the roberts court, strikes down the health care law, which of course is coming up for argument next month. if they strike it down, all or part of it, i think president obama will be critical of them publicly. will he propose a court packing plan as fdr did? i don't think so. obama was a very keen student of american history and he knows that most historians rank the court packing plan as one of the worst things that franklin roosevelt ever did during his tenure as president. what about comparing the hughes court and the roberts court? and the two chief justices? well, there's certain parallels. both hughes and roberts were brilliant lawyers before they were appointed to the court and they were both appointed by republican presidents. but i would suggest to you that there's a difference in their -- in their politics and in their constitutional interpretations, as well. hughes was a centrist, as i said to you. he was a progressive republican when -- in -- as governor of new work. he was an internationalist as secretary of state. and he really wanted to pull the court together, and he was not ideological in his decisions. chief justice roberts, on the other hand, it seems to me, before he came on to the court, he was a fierce advocate for conservative causes. and on the court, he has consistently aligned himself with the most conservative members of the court on the most polarizing issues, such as campaign finance and affirmative action, for example. so i think there are similarities and there are differences. i do believe that the court will be an issue in the fall presidential campaign because a lot is at stake in terms of the future of the court. whoever is elected in november is probably going to have at least one, and maybe more, appointments to the court. there are four members of the court who are over 70 years old. if during the next term there are at least two appointments, of course, it depends on who they are, there's a good chance that the future direction of the court will be determined for many years to come. and it's no small measure of the future of the nation. so there are parallels. there are lessons, historical lessons, to be learned from my book on fdr and chief justice hughes, but i think just on its own it is a fascinating story of two remarkable leaders of american government in the 20th century. so thank you and i'll take a few questions if you have them. [ applause ] sunday night on q&a, civil war historian and virginia tech professor emeritus james robertson discusses his book "after the civil war, the heroes, villains, soldiers and civilians who changed america." >> state allegiance was very, very deep. it went as far back in generations as there were settlers in the country. and i think one has to keep that in mind. i'm not belittling slavery. slavery is without question the main cause of the civil war. but you can explain the actions by good decent men like robert e. lee and stonewall jackson. they fight because virginia needs them, not because they supported the confederate cause. neither one did. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. the c-span radio app makes it easy to continue to follow the 2016 election wherever you are. it's free to download from the apple app store or google play. get audio coverage and up to the minute schedule information for c-span radio and c-span television, plus podcast times for our popular public affairs, book and history programs. stay up to date on all the election coverage. c-span's radio app means you always have c-span on the go. now the contenders. our series on key political figures who ran for president and lost but who nevertheless changed political history. tonight we feature former secretary of state and supreme court chief justice charles hughes who ran for president in 1916 against woodrow wilson. this two-hour program was recorded at the u.s. supreme court here in washington, d.c. this is american history tv, only on c-span3. >>