Background
Stone was born on October 11, 1872 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, to Fred Lauson Stone and his wife, Ann Sophia (née Butler) Stone.
Stone was born on October 11, 1872 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, to Fred Lauson Stone and his wife, Ann Sophia (née Butler) Stone.
Stone attended public school in Amherst and then, after 2 years of high school, enrolled in the Massachusetts Agricultural College. He was accepted by Amherst College, graduating in 1894. In 1896 he entered the Columbia University School of Law, supporting himself by teaching history. In June 1898 he received his law degree and soon passed his bar examinations. Stone joined the well-known New York City legal firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, later moving to another firm.
In his early days in practice Stone supplemented his income by lecturing at Columbia School of Law. Stone appeared to be perfectly content making money until, in 1910, he became dean of the Columbia School of Law. The work as dean was most rewarding. Yet there were too many examples of Stone's conservatism to convince his fellow faculty members that he was in any way liberal. He also made an appointment that years later would remain controversial when he made J. Edgar Hoover head of the Bureau of Criminal Investigations (later the Federal Bureau of Investigation). Stone also moved against the Aluminum Corporation of America as a violator of the antitrust laws. This corporation was under control of the family of Andrew Mellon, who was then secretary of the treasury. Before this case could be readied for court, President Coolidge named Stone an associate justice of the Supreme Court.
Stone's new appointment ran into some difficulties. However, the appointment was confirmed. On the bench Stone moved slowly. In time the liberals on the Court were considered to be Brandeis, Holmes, Stone, and later Benjamin Cardozo. The question of the constitutionality of many of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal laws eventually confronted the Supreme Court. Stone met these challenges and remained liberal in his thinking. He concurred in the Court's decision on the unconstitutionality of the National Recovery Administration. One of the most important pieces of New Deal legislation was the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. It was inevitable that the Supreme Court would be asked to rule on its constitutionality. In U. S. v. Butler (1936) a majority of the Court declared the AAA constitutional. Justice Stone wrote a strong dissenting opinion. He revealed his conception of judicial functions when he declared: "The power of courts to declare a statute unconstitutional is subject to two guiding principles of decision which ought never to be absent from judicial consciousness. One is that courts are concerned only with the power to enact statutes, not with their wisdom. " Stone was not a colorful figure, but he was a human one.
Quotations: "Courts are not the only agency of government that must be assumed to have capacity to govern. "
Director of the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railroad Company, president of the Association of American Law Schools, member of the American Bar Association, member of the Literary Society of Washington
Stone married Agnes E. Harvey in 1899. Their children were Lauson H. Stone and the mathematician Marshall H. Stone.
Chief Justice of the United States, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Attorney General