Although he never developed a consistent legal philosophy, McKenna was the author of a number of important decisions. One of the most notable was his opinion in the case of United States v. U.S. Steel Corporation (1920) which held that antitrust cases would be decided on the "rule of reason" principle—only alleged monopolistic combinations that are in unreasonable restraint of trade are illegal.[10]
He authored 614 majority opinions, and 146 dissenting opinions during his time on the bench.[11] His passionate rebuttal to the denial of "pecuniary benefit" to a wife whose husband had been killed while working on the railroad was among those which brought a change to the Employer Liability Act. One of his most noteworthy opinions was Hipolite Egg Co. v. United States, 220 U.S. 45 (1911),[12][13] in which a unanimous Court upheld the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.
In Hoke v. United States (1913), he concurred in upholding the Mann Act. However, four years later, he dissented from the Court's opinion in Caminetti v. United States (1917), which held the act applied to private, noncommercial enticements to cross state lines for purposes of a sexual liaison. According to McKenna, the Act regulated only commercial vice, i.e., "immoralities having a mercenary purpose."[14]
McKenna wrote Williams v. Mississippi, upholding the state's racist 1890 Constitution that disenfranchised nearly every African American in the state through poll taxes and literacy tests, while exempting whites through a grandfather clause.[15]
McKenna resigned from the Court in January 1925 at the suggestion of Chief Justice William Howard Taft.[16] McKenna's ability to perform his duties had been diminished significantly by a stroke suffered 10 years earlier, and by the end of his tenure McKenna could not be counted on to write coherent opinions.[16]
McKenna was one of 15 Catholic justices (out of the 116 total through the appointment of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson) in the history of the Supreme Court.[17]
McKenna married Amanda Borneman in 1869, and the couple had three daughters and one son.[14] McKenna died on November 21, 1926.[14] in Washington, D.C. His remains are interred at the city's Mount Olivet Cemetery.[18][19]
^Salyer, Lucy (1995). Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law. The University of North Carolina Press. p. 33. ISBN978-0-8078-4530-1.
^McDevitt, Matthew (1946). Joseph McKenna, Associate Justice of the United States. Catholic University of America Press. p. 105.
^Purcell, Richard (1945). "Justice Joseph McKenna". Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. 56 (3): 203 – via https://www.jstor.org/stable/44209609. {{cite journal}}: External link in |via= (help)
^See also, Christensen, George A., Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited, Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 17 – 41 (19 Feb 2008), University of Alabama.
Further reading
Abraham, Henry J. (1999). Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton (Revised ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-8476-9604-9.
.jpg)
