Carl B. Swisher (1897–1968) was Thomas P. Stran Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. He wrote numerous articles and several books on constitutional history, including his authoritative biography of Andrew Jackson's chief justice, Roger B. Taney (1935); The Growth of Constitutional Power in the U.S. (1945); and Historic Decisions of the Supreme Court (1979).

• 1. The background of the Taney Court; 2. The Taney appointment; 3. Personnel of the Taney Court; 4. The first term and the Bridge Case; 5. The realm of finance; 6. Hard times and contract obligations; 7. The scope of executive power; 8. The impact of foreign affairs; 9. Politics and personnel; 10. The judges and the circuits; 11. The expanding work load; 12. The clerk and the reporter; 13. Federal courts and the common law; 14. Fringes of the codification movement; 15. The control of commerce; 16. The continuing struggle over commerce; 17. The developing pattern of the commerce power; 18. Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; 19. The rights of corporations; 20. Patent rights and free enterprise; 21. Political questions and judicial power; 22. Sectionalism and slavery; 23. Soil for slavery; 24. The Dred Scott case; 25. Aftermath of the Scott case; 26. The Booth cases and Northern nullification; 27. Fugitives from justice; 28. The widening breach; 29. The court on the eve of the war; 30. Property in land; 31. The wealth of El Dorado; 32. Lincoln's appointments to the court; 33. The war and the federal judges; 34. The blockade and the laws of war; 35. Wartime curtailment of civil rights; 36. Other problems from the war; 37. The end of the Taney regime.

'This monumental study provides an arsenal of information on the decisions and related activities of the Taney court … Swisher convincingly demonstrates by example that future scholars must look beyond the banks of the Potomac to the circuit duties and decisions of the justices in order to appreciate the role of the court.' Kermit L. Hall, The Journal of American History