Nineteenth-century Republicans expanded court power to entrench economic nationalism against electoral defeat

Evidence

This strategy was executed more effectively by Republicans in the late nineteenth century. As they perceived the electoral tide beginning to turn against them, the Republican Party sought to lock in their agenda of conservative “economic nationalism” by expanding the jurisdiction of the federal courts and staffing them with ideologically sympathetic judges and Justices. As the political scientist Howard Gillman has described, the “increased power, jurisdiction, and conservatism of federal courts during this period was a by-product of Republican Party efforts to promote and entrench a policy of economic nationalism during a time when that agenda was vulnerable to electoral politics.” — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 340

Categorization

• XREF: A second historical specimen of ideological entrenchment timed to electoral vulnerability — precisely the pattern the reading purpose wants tested for stickiness vs. disposal. — connects to: Partisan state admissions during the Civil War entrenched Republican Senate power for decades. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 303; Naturalization policy in the 1800s was openly driven by electoral self-interest — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 318; Late-nineteenth-century courts functioned as a shield protecting established interests — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3602
• SEED: Contrasting the Gilded-Age economic-nationalism entrenchment (which fell apart later) with the 1801 Federalist case (Jefferson repealed the midnight judges) gives a comparative test of which entrenching moves actually lasted.

Broader Connections

• Late-nineteenth-century courts functioned as a shield protecting established interests #corroborates (0.95) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3602