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Up for sale is an autographed Vintage Printed Engraving Hand Signed by James Byrnes, Stanley Reed, William Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, and Hugo BLack. This piece comes
certified through JG Autographs and comes with their COA. 2, 1882 – April 9, 1972) was an American judge and politician from the
state of South Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrnes
served in Congress, the executive branch, and on the U.S. Supreme
Court. He was also the 104th governor of South Carolina, making him
one of the very few politicians to have served in the highest levels of all
three branches of the American federal government while also being active in
state government. Born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Byrnes
pursued a legal career with the help of his cousin, Governor Miles
Benjamin McSweeney. Byrnes won election to the U.S. House of
Representatives and served from 1911 to 1925. He became a close ally of
President Woodrow Wilson and a protégé of Senator Benjamin
Tillman. He sought election to the U.S. Senate in 1924, but narrowly
lost a runoff election to Coleman Livingston Blease, who had the backing
of the Ku Klux Klan. Byrnes then moved his law practice
to Spartanburg, South Carolina and prepared for a political comeback.
He narrowly defeated Blease in the 1930 Democratic primary and joined the
Senate in 1931. Historian George E. Mowry called Byrnes "the
most influential Southern member of Congress Johnson" In the Senate, Byrnes supported
the policies of his longtime friend, President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Byrnes championed the New Deal and sought federal investment in South
Carolina water projects. He also supported Roosevelt's foreign policy, calling
for a hard line against Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany. On the
other hand, Byrnes felt America was "a white man's country" other legislation designed
for the betterment of African Americans. He also opposed some of the labor laws
proposed by Roosevelt, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, which
established a minimum wage that hurt his state's competitive
advantage of very low factory wages. Roosevelt appointed Byrnes to the Supreme
Court in 1941 but asked him to join the executive branch after America's entry
into World War II. During the war, Byrnes led the Office of Economic Stabilization and
the Office of War Mobilization. He was a candidate to replace Henry
A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1944 election, but
instead Harry S. Truman was nominated by the 1944 Democratic
National Convention. After Roosevelt's death, Byrnes served as a close adviser
to Truman and became U.S. Secretary of State in July 1945. In that
capacity, Byrnes attended the Potsdam Conference and the Paris
Conference. However, relations between Byrnes and Truman soured, and Byrnes
resigned from the Cabinet in January 1947. He returned to elective politics in
1950 by winning election as the governor of South Carolina. As governor,
he opposed the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and
sought to establish "separate but equal" as a realistic alternative
to the desegregation of schools. Though he remained a Democrat himself, he
endorsed most Republican presidential nominees after 1948 and supported Strom
Thurmond's switch to the Republican Party in 1964.
Stanley Forman Reed (December
31, 1884 – April 2, 1980) was a noted American attorney who served
as United States Solicitor General from 1935 to 1938 and as
an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1938 to
1957. Born in Mason County, Kentucky, Reed established a
legal practice in Maysville, Kentucky and won election to
the Kentucky House of Representatives. He attended law school but did not
graduate, making him the latest-serving Supreme Court Justice who did not
graduate from law school. After serving in the United States
Army during World War I, Reed emerged as a prominent corporate attorney
and took positions with the Federal Farm Board and
the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He took office as Solicitor
General in 1935, and defended the constitutionality of several New
Deal policies. After the retirement of Associate Justice George
Sutherland, President Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully nominated
Reed to the Supreme Court. Reed served until his retirement in 1957, and was
succeeded by Charles Evans Whittaker. Reed wrote the majority opinion in
cases such as Smith v. Allwright, Gorin v. United States, and Adamson
v. California. He authored dissenting opinions in cases such as Illinois
ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education.
William Orville Douglas (October 16,
1898 – January 19, 1980) was an American jurist and politician who served
as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United
States. Nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Douglas was
confirmed at the age of 40, one of the youngest justices appointed to the
court. His term, lasting 36 years and 211 days (1939–75), is
the longest in the history of the Supreme Court. In 1975 Time magazine
called Douglas "the most doctrinaire and to sit on the court". After an
itinerant childhood, Douglas attended Whitman College on a
scholarship. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1925 and joined
the Yale Law School faculty. After serving as the third chairman of
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Douglas was successfully
nominated to the Supreme Court, succeeding Justice Louis Brandeis. He was
among those seriously considered for the 1944 Democratic vice presidential
nomination and was subject to an unsuccessful draft movement prior to the 1948
presidential election. Douglas served on the Court until his retirement in
1975, and was succeeded by John Paul Stevens. Douglas holds a number of
records as a Supreme Court Justice, including the most opinions. Douglas
wrote the Court's majority opinion in major cases such as United States
v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948), Terminiello v. City of
Chicago (1949), Brady v. Maryland (1963), and Griswold
v. Connecticut (1965). He wrote notable concurring or dissenting
opinions in cases such as Dennis v. United States (1951), Terry
v. Ohio (1968), and Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969).
He was also known as a strong opponent of the Vietnam War and an
ardent advocate of environmentalism.
Felix Frankfurter (November 15,
1882 – February 22, 1965) was an American lawyer, professor, and jurist who served
as an Associate Justice of the Supreme
Court of the United States. Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court
from 1939 to 1962 and was a noted advocate of judicial
restraint in the judgments of the Court. Frankfurter was born
in Vienna, Austria, and
immigrated to New
York City at the age of 12. After graduating from Harvard
Law School, Frankfurter worked for Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson.
During World
War I, Frankfurter served as Judge Advocate General. After the war, he helped found
the American Civil Liberties Union and returned to his
position as professor at Harvard Law School. He became a friend and adviser of
President Franklin
D. Roosevelt, who appointed him to fill the Supreme Court vacancy
caused by the death of Benjamin
Cardozo. Frankfurter served on the Court until his retirement in
1962, and was succeeded by Arthur Goldberg.
Frankfurter wrote the Court's majority opinions in cases such as Minersville School District v. Gobitis, Gomillion
v. Lightfoot, and Beauharnais
v. Illinois. He wrote dissenting opinions in notable cases such
as Baker
v. Carr, West Virginia State Board of
Education v. Barnette, Glasser
v. United States, and Trop v. Dulles.
Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27,
1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who
served as a U.S. Senator from 1927 to 1937 and as an Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to
1971. A member of the Democratic Party and a devoted New
Dealer, Black endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt in elections. Having
gained a reputation in the Senate as a reformer, Black was nominated to the
Supreme Court by President Roosevelt and confirmed by the Senate by a
vote of 63 to 16 (six Democratic Senators and 10 Republican Senators voted
against him). He was the first of nine Roosevelt appointees to the
Court, and he outlasted all except for William O. justice in Supreme Court history, Black was one of
the most influential Supreme Court justices in the 20th century. He is noted
for his advocacy of a textualist reading of the United States
Constitution and of the position that the liberties guaranteed in
the Bill of Rights were imposed on the states
("incorporated") by the Fourteenth Amendment. During his
political career, Black was regarded[ as a staunch supporter
of liberal policies and civil liberties. During World
War II, Black wrote the majority opinion in Korematsu v. United States (1944),
which upheld the Japanese-American internment that had taken place.
Black opposed the doctrine of substantive due process (the anti-New
Deal Supreme Court's interpretation of this concept made it impossible for
the government to enact legislation that conservatives claimed interfered with
the ostensible freedom of business owners) and believed that there was no basis
in the words of the Constitution for a right to privacy, voting against
finding one in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). Before
he became a U.S. Senator (D-AL), Black espoused anti-Catholic views and was a
member of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama, but he resigned in
1925. In 1937, upon being appointed to the Supreme Court, Black said:
"Before becoming a Senator I dropped the Klan. I have had nothing to do
with it since that time. I abandoned it. I completely discontinued any
association with the organization." Black served as the
Secretary of the Senate Democratic Conference and the Chair of the Senate
Education Committee during his decade in the Senate.
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