William Marshall Bullitt

William Marshall Bullitt (March 4, 1873 – October 3, 1957) was a distinguished American lawyer and author, known for his contributions to constitutional law and his role in landmark Supreme Court cases as Solicitor General for President William Howard Taft. Bullitt also appears in the Alger Hiss case, as he was on the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace while Hiss was the President, from 1946-1949.

Early Life

Born into a prominent family in Louisville, Kentucky, Bullitt graduated from Harvard Law School in 1895.

Career

Bullitt's most notable legal achievement came during his tenure as Solicitor General of the United States from 1912 to 1913, under President Taft. In this role, he argued several significant cases before the Supreme Court, most famously defending the constitutionality of the Federal Reserve Act in Louisville & Nashville Railroad Company v. Mottley (1913). His arguments helped establish critical precedents in federal jurisdiction and regulatory authority.

Publications

Outside his public service, Bullitt continued to practice law at his family’s firm, Bullitt & Dawson, where he built a reputation as a formidable litigator. He also authored several influential books and articles on legal topics, including Constitutional Limitations (1931), a comprehensive analysis of the constraints on government power, and The Supreme Court of the United States: The New Deal vs. Democracy (1935), which critiqued the expansion of federal power during the New Deal era. His writings reflected his commitment to constitutional conservatism and his belief in limited government and individual liberties.

In time, after reviewing the trial transcripts, Bullitt became an outspoken critic of Alger Hiss. In 1950, Bullitt gave speeches and wrote monographs about the obvious guilt of Hiss, comparing Hiss' decision to sue Chambers for libel to that of Oscar Wilde, in that they both brought about the destruction of otherwise talented people who ought to have known better than to bring a libel suit.

Alger Hiss revisionist Joan Brady, who was also a personal friend of Hiss, contends that a single letter from Richard Nixon to Bullitt, thanking him for his 'help' in the Hiss case, shows that there was an organized conspiracy against Alger Hiss from within the government. This impossible theory, based on mere conjecture, posits that the Bullitt family was jealous of Hiss' appointment to the Carnegie Foundation. This theory has found some believers among the far-left.