The Supreme Court Series includes articles, booklets, correspondence, clippings, executive orders, laws, legislative bills, memoranda, notes, opinions (both draft and final versions), pamphlets, petitions, photographs, postcards, proclamations, receipts, speeches, and telegrams.

This series covers the period 1918, 1940-1944, and 1947, with the bulk of it documenting cover Byrnes’ tenure on the United State Supreme Court from 1941 to 1942.

Materials in this series are arranged alphabetically by folder title, and correspondence files are arranged alphabetically by surname. Photographs have been removed to photograph storage; see the Photographs Series for photographs removed from this series.

Byrnes had been serving in the U. S. Senate for eleven years when President Roosevelt appointed him to the Supreme Court on July 8, 1941. The appointment was Byrnes’ reward for being a strong political ally during his years in the Senate and as atonement for being ultimately overlooked as the vice-presidential running mate in the 1940 election. Byrnes’ service on the court was brief, lasting just under a year. He was not a great justice; neither was he the failure some had predicted. He rarely dissented or offered revisions to motions and opinions. And he willingly gave up the lifetime appointment for a chance at executive politics.

The series consists mostly of correspondence and materials regarding cases handled between October 1941 and October 1942. Of the latter the most important are folders related to eighteen specific Supreme Court cases. They include opinions annotated by other justices with comments, corrections, or indications of concurrence or dissent.

Correspondence related to the Court is mainly concerned with legal opinions on legislation (including wartime measures), congratulations on his appointment to the Court, invitations, and thank yous. The rest of the correspondence consists of business, family (mainly with the Fuller and Miner families) and personal correspondence, which include requests for assistance with U.S. government departments, condolences, invitations, recommendations for appointments or employment, and thank yous.

There are also letters from others asking Byrnes advice on political matters and his replies. Many of these letters are to or from Franklin D. Roosevelt. In addition, many of the correspondents after 1941 discuss wartime matters such as assignments to military units, officer commissions, and base facilities. One folder of material relates to a proposal to appoint Bernard Baruch to War Production Board in 1942.

Correspondents include businessmen Bernard Baruch and Joseph P. Kennedy; Supreme Court Justices Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, Robert H. Jackson, Stanley Reed, Owen J. Roberts, and Harlan Stone; Attorney General Francis Biddle; Byrnes’ secretary Cassie Connor; R. M. Cooper, Director of the South Carolina Public Service Authority; General Counsel Oscar Cox; F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover; Clemson YMCA General Secretary P. B. Holtzendorff; Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes; Clemson College Business Manager James C. Littlejohn; South Carolina Governor Burnet R. Maybank; Lawrence M. Pinckney, South Carolina State Administrator of the WPA; Clemson College President Robert F. Poole; journalist Ben Robertson; President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Senator Richard B. Russell; Eleventh Circuit Court Judge Strom Thurmond; lawyers Donald Russell and George Bell Timmerman; and Grace Tully, President Roosevelt’s private secretary.