Thomas Reed Powell

Background

He was born on April 29, 1880 in Richford, Vermont, United States, the son of Henry and Georgiana Reed Powell. His father was a local banker who also served as treasurer of the University of Vermont.

Education

After graduating from that university, in 1900, Powell attended the Harvard Law School, receiving the LL. B. in 1904. Later he entered Columbia University for graduate study in political science and received in 1913.

Career

He returned to Burlington, Vermont, to practice, became a lecturer in public law while working at Columbia University. Continuing to teach at Columbia, he served from 1913 to 1916 as managing editor of the Political Science Quarterly, and in 1923 he was appointed Ruggles professor of constitutional law.

At Columbia he enjoyed an association with John Dewey, a fellow Vermonter, whose instrumentalist philosophy was congenial to him. They reinforced each other intellectually: Dewey provided a more systematic framework for Powell's insights into legal, and particularly judicial, modes of thought; and Powell furnished illustrative specimens for the philosopher.

In 1925 Powell accepted a call to the Harvard Law School, where he became successively Langdell and Story professor. Powell concentrated his analytical powers on the reasoning of judicial opinions. His writings were influential, for example, in shrinking the scope of inter-governmental tax immunities and in displacing the formalistic "original package" barrier to state property taxes on imported goods. State taxation and regulation impinging on interstate commerce, or on federal governmental functions, were his special province. Powell was a popular table companion at the St. Botolph Club in Boston and the Century in New York, and was sought after at universities as a lecturer.

A year before his death he delivered the Carpentier lectures at Columbia, which were published posthumously (1956) as Vagaries and Varieties in Constitutional Law, an exemplar of his themes and style. He died in Boston.

Achievements

• Thomas Reed Powell taught for twenty-five years at Harvard Law School. His published analyses of constitutional doctrines and Supreme Court decisions frequently influenced the future course of constitutional law, as, for example, in reducing the protection from taxation afforded by the original package doctrine. He was a prolific author of critical essays and reviews: a bibliography compiled for his seventieth birthday lists almost 400 articles, book reviews, and comments.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The principle of separation of powers in its application to the administrative exercise of the police power

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Indirect Encroachment on Federal Authority by the Taxing Powers of the States

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Views

Rejecting abstract and absolute principles, he concentrated on the precise economic impact of the state law, the local need, and the availability of less burdensome alternatives to meet the need. He preferred rarely address to those constitutional issues that later came to predominate - equal protection of the laws or freedom of speech and of the press - regarding these as "soft" subjects which did not lend themselves to his kind of rigor.

Connections

He was married in 1915 to Mary Lee Hale; they had three children.

Father:

Henry Powell

Mother:

Georgiana Reed Powell

Spouse:

Mary Lee Hale

coworker:

John Dewey