Fuller Court
The Fuller Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States from 1888 to 1910, when Melville Fuller served as the eighth Chief Justice of the United States. Fuller succeeded Morrison R. Waite as Chief Justice after the latter's death, and Fuller served as Chief Justice until his death, at which point Associate Justice Edward Douglass White was nominated and confirmed as Fuller's replacement. During the era of the Fuller Court, the Judiciary Act of 1891 was passed, easing the burden of the Supreme Court by creating the United States courts of appeals. The Fuller  Court was the first of three consecutive conservative courts, and established the Lochner era. Membership. The Fuller court began in October 1888, when the Senate confirmed President Grover Cleveland's nomination of Melville Fuller as the successor to Chief Justice Waite. On Fuller's accession to the office, the Fuller Court consisted of associate justices: Samuel Freeman Miller, Stephen Johnson Field, Joseph P. Bradley, John Marshall Harlan, Stanley Matthews, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford, and Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar IIwho had taken office earlier that year. Matthews, Miller, and Bradley all died between 1889 and 1892, and President Benjamin Harrison appointed  David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, and George Shiras, Jr. to replace them. Lamar and Blatchford both died in 1893, and President Harrison appointed Howell Edmunds Jackson while President Cleveland appointed Edward Douglass White as their replacements. White was Cleveland's third nominee to the seat that had been held by Blatchford, following the Senate's rejections of William B. Hornblower and Wheeler Hazard Peckham. Jackson died in 1895, and was replaced by another Cleveland appointee, Rufus Wheeler Peckham, brother of Wheeler Peckham. Field retired in 1897, and was replaced by Attorney General Joseph McKenna, the lone appointment made by  William McKinley. Gray died in 1902 and Shiras retired in 1903; President Theodore Roosevelt successfully nominated Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and William R. Day to replace them. Brown retired in 1906, and Roosevelt appointed William Henry Moody to the court. Peckham died in 1909 and was succeeded by Horace Harmon Lurton, an appointee of President William Howard Taft. After Fuller's death, Fuller was replaced as Chief Justice by Associate Justice Edward Douglass White, who was elevated by President Taft. Between the death of Fuller and the elevation of White, Charles Evans Hughes joined the court as the successor to  David Josiah Brewer, who died in 1910. Moody also retired in 1910, shortly before the elevation of White due to a prolonged illness. Other branches. Presidents during this court included Grover Cleveland (two non-consecutive terms), Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft. Congresses during this court included 50th through the 61st United States Congresses. Rulings of the Court. Major rulings of the Fuller Court include: Judicial philosophy. In contrast with the Waite Court, the Fuller Court used the Due Process Clause to strike down several economic regulations in defense of a laissez faire economy. The court  struck down several federal regulatory laws and sought to maintain the autonomy of the states, but it also struck down state laws that it saw as impediments to interstate commerce. The Fuller Court ruled more favorably to the government in other cases, most notably "Plessy", and granted the government wide latitude in administering colonial territories. The court also declined to extend due process protections into the sphere of criminal procedure. Like many other courts prior to 1941, the Fuller Court had strong consensual norms, which helped to keep the number of dissents to a minimum. No clear ideological blocs emerged  during Fuller's tenure, but Justices Holmes, Day, Gray, and Brown tended to favor upholding laws, and Justices Shiras, Harlan, White, and Peckham were the most willing to overrule state legislatures. Justice Harlan was notable for his many dissents, earning him the moniker of the "Great Dissenter." The ideological homogeneity was a product of an era in which Republican presidents dominated, and the lone Democratic president (Cleveland) shared the pro-business views of most Republicans. Fuller himself was regarded as a talented administrator generally in agreement with the court's philosophy, but not a dominant intellectual force. Fuller Court The