FDR Defended his
Court Scheme

“The plan I proposed provided for a continuous and recurrent addition for new blood, new vigor, new experience and new outlook [for the Supreme Court]. For, under my plan, as soon as a justice reached the age of seventy, a new justice would be appointed. The old justice could retire on full salary for life, if he wished. If he preferred not to retire, he might continue to remain on the bench; but he would be counterbalanced there by the new man who had had an active contact with the life about him. There were other advantages in this plan. It was of undoubted constitutionality; and it seemed to me to have the best chance of passing both Houses of Congress most quickly. And speed was so essential”.