Earl Warren swears in his own successor; Burger takes the center chair

Earl Warren had spent sixteen years reshaping American constitutional law — on civil rights, criminal procedure, and the limits of government power — and Richard Nixon had campaigned in part against everything Warren stood for. On June 23, 1969, Warren administered the judicial oath to his own successor, Warren Earl Burger of Saint Paul, Minnesota, a strict constructionist whom Nixon had nominated exactly a month earlier. The Senate had confirmed Burger 74–3. The man who would inherit the Warren Court's docket walked into his new role through a door held open by the man whose legacy he was expected to dismantle…