Before the New Deal could transform American government, the Supreme Court had spent decades defining—and defending—a very different vision of freedom.

In Part 1 of our New Deal series, we explore the legal and political ideas that shaped the Court before the Constitutional Revolution of 1937. From laissez-faire economics and Social Darwinism to the Contract Clause, substantive due process, and the emerging “freedom of contract,” this episode explains how judges came to view economic regulation and social reform with deep suspicion.

We also trace the rise of corporate personhood, the beginning of the Lochner era, the economic crisis of 1893, the Populist movement, and William Jennings Bryan’s effort to remake the Democratic Party. Together, these developments set the stage for an extraordinary confrontation between the Supreme Court,  ...