ABSTRACT
Frederick Moore Vinson, the thirteenth chief justice of the United States, was born in Louisa, Kentucky, on January 22, 1890. President Harry Truman chose Vinson first as his secretary of treasury in 1945 and, after Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone died, named Vinson chief justice in June 1946. During Vinson's tenure, the Supreme Court took decisive action against racial discrimination in education, housing, transportation, criminal justice, voting rights, and labor relations. When the Court reheard the cases, Earl Warren, new chief justice, presided and handed down in May 1954 a unanimous opinion that relied upon Vinson's Sweatt and McLaurin opinions to hold that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Vinson's two major opinions documented his support for the government's loyalty and security programs and revealed his lukewarm sensitivity to claims of individual liberty. Reelected in 1930, Vinson played a leading role during Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in shaping the Social Security Act and in supporting the president's Court-packing plan.
