Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote on subjects as different as a Texas primary, an oil code and old-age pensions. Five opinions, from 1932 to 1937, show how he handled them: in plain sentences, and with a test that the next court could apply. Four are opinions for the Court. One, in the oil case, is a dissent in which he was the only justice who disagreed.
A party acting for the state
Nixon v. Condon (1932), decided May 2, 1932. A Texas statute gave every political party's State Executive Committee the power to prescribe the qualifications of its members and to determine who could take part in the party. Acting under it, the Democratic executive committee adopted a resolution that only white Democrats could take part in the party's primary, excluding Black voters. Cardozo, writing for the Court, held that whatever inherent power a party has to set qualifications for its members rests in the party's state convention, not in the executive committee. The committee had its power from the statute, so its exclusion of Black voters was action of the state and violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
A narrow disagreement
Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935), decided January 7, 1935. The Court struck down Section 9(c) of the National Industrial Recovery Act, which let the President prohibit the interstate shipment of oil produced in excess of state limits. Cardozo was the only dissenter. He agreed with the Court on the oil code itself, but not on this section. "My point of difference with the majority of the court is narrow," he wrote. "I concede that to uphold the delegation there is need to discover in the terms of the act a standard reasonably clear whereby discretion must be governed. I deny that such a standard is lacking in respect of the prohibitions permitted by this section when the act with all its reasonable implications is considered as a whole."
Ordered liberty
Palko v. Connecticut (1937), decided December 6, 1937. Palko was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life. Connecticut was allowed to appeal for errors of law, and after a retrial he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. He argued that the second trial put him in jeopardy twice. Cardozo held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy rule to the states, and the retrial was consistent with due process. His test asked which rights "have been found to be implicit in the concept of ordered liberty," and so apply to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court overruled Palko in Benton v. Maryland (1969), which held that the double jeopardy guarantee is enforceable against the states.
Two parts of Social Security
Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937) and Helvering v. Davis (1937) were both decided on May 24, 1937, and both were written by Cardozo. Steward Machine concerned the Social Security Act's unemployment compensation tax. The Court held that "in promotion of the general welfare moneys of the Nation may be used to relieve the unemployed and their dependents in economic depressions." It treated the problem of unemployment as national as well as local. Helvering v. Davis concerned the taxes required by Title VIII of the Social Security Act, which a shareholder of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston tried to stop his company from paying, and the "Federal Old-Age Benefits" set up by Title II. The Court held that the scheme does not violate the Tenth Amendment and that Congress may spend money in aid of the "general welfare." The opinion pointed to the effects on the states: a system of old-age pensions in one state, it noted, can encourage needy people to move there from states that have rejected such systems.
What the five opinions show
In Nixon and Palko the question was how the Fourteenth Amendment reaches the states. In the other three it was how far Congress's powers go. These five opinions are a sample from the Court's record in those years, and they are not the whole of his work.
Sources
- Nixon v. Condon (1932), 286 U.S. 73: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
- Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935), 293 U.S. 388: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
- Palko v. Connecticut (1937), 302 U.S. 319: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
- Benton v. Maryland (1969), 395 U.S. 784: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
- Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937), 301 U.S. 548: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
- Helvering v. Davis (1937), 301 U.S. 619: Library of Congress, U.S. Reports
Updated November 2026.
This post was rewritten with AI (Claude) and reviewed by an editor before publication.
