Posted on 09/25/2010 5:55:09 PM PDT by Jacquerie
You seem . . . to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.
Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is "boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem, '' and their power the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control.
The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments coequal and co-sovereign within themselves. If the legislature fails to pass laws for a census, for paying the judges and other officers of government, for establishing a militia, for naturalization as prescribed by the Constitution, or if they fail to meet in congress, the judges cannot issue their mandamus to them; if the President fails to supply the place of a judge, to appoint other civil or military officers, to issue requisite commissions, the judges cannot force him. They can issue their mandamus or distringas to no executive or legislative officer to enforce the fulfilment of their official duties, any more than the President or legislature may issue orders to the judges or their officers.
Betrayed by English example, and unaware, as it should seem, of the control of our Constitution in this particular, they have at times overstepped their limit by undertaking to command executive officers in the discharge of their executive duties; but the Constitution, in keeping three departments distinct and independent, restrains the authority of the judges to judiciary organs, as it does the executive and legislative to executive and legislative organs. The judges certainly have more frequent occasion to act on constitutional questions, because the laws of meum and tuum and of criminal action, forming the great mass of the system of law, constitute their particular department.
When the legislative or executive functionaries act unconstitutionally, they are responsible to the people in their elective capacity. The exemption of the judges from that is quite dangerous enough. I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power. Pardon me, Sir, for this difference of opinion. My personal interest in such questions is entirely extinct, but not my wishes for the longest possible continuance of our government on its pure principles; if the three powers maintain their mutual independence on each other it may last long, but not so if either can assume the authorities of the other. I ask your candid re-consideration of this subject, and am sufficiently sure you will form a candid conclusion.
Accept the assurance of my great respect.
(Ltr to William Charles Jarvis, 28 Sep 1820)
(Letter begins at page 277 of link.)
Constitution ping!
Supreme Court has been the big bosses since Earl Warren.
“Boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem.”
It is the part of a good judge to enlarge his jurisdiction.
Timeless Jefferson.
5 of our first 7 presidents served two terms. The two that served only one term were liberals...and they were both named Adams.
The Federal courts now have powers that were never given to them by We the People. They just took those powers for themselves. This needs to be stopped. No government court should ever be telling US what the Constitution or the Bill of Rights mean. We the People should be telling the government what the Constitution and Bill of Rights mean. That’s our job! It’s what the Founding Fathers intended for us to do.
The ultimate arbiters of the Constitution are the people, since the power inherent in it has the people as its source.
“We, the People of the United States...”
Having said that, those who represent us, each and every officer of government, in every branch and at every level, has a sworn duty to correctly interpret and follow the Constitution in every detail.
Just because one officer in one branch breaches that oath, no other officer in other branch has leave to breach his own.
The primary reason the courts are out of control now is that our executives and legislators are refusing to do their Constitutional duty.
Unfortunately, the Republican Party is rotted clear through with judicial supremacists.
And it’s taking down the republic and destroying our liberty.
Adams and Hamilton serve as evidence that big government liberals always were and always will be.
No! There is a relatively new book, “Nullification,” by Thomas E. Woods. The author’s argument “The Supreme Court itself, after all, although usually pointed to as the monopolistic and infallible judge of the constitutionality of the federal government’s action, itself a branch of the federal government.”
True check on the federal government is the several States. The states have the power to nullify any action of the federal government by a simple majority. Great book just got started reading it. Very timely.
A total misunderstanding. First, John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the majority opinion in Marbury vs. Madison. And he didn’t say what later judicial supremacists attribute to him.
He did not assert the supremacy of the Supreme Court. He asserted the supremacy of the Constitution, and pointed out that all three branches have the obligation to adhere to it.
I know that’s not what they teach today in the law schools, but I know how to read and have pretty decent reading comprehension skills, and can think for my myself.
I believe that a fully informed jury is the last ditch.
Pardon me for posting this again here...
Impeachment of Supreme Court Justices
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Constitution of the United States
Article I Section 2: The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
Article II Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article III Section 1: The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
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A Supreme Court Justice may be impeached by the House of Representatives and then removed from office if convicted in a Senate trial, but only for the same types of offenses that would trigger impeachment proceedings for any other government official under Article I and II of the Constitution.
Article III, Section 1 states that judges shall hold their offices “during good behavior.” The courts have interpreted the phrase “good behavior” to be the same level of seriousness as “high crimes and misdemeanors”.
So, although the mechanism for doing so exists, NO Supreme Court justice has EVER been “removed from office” by the Senate, and ONLY ONE Supreme Court Justice has ever been “impeached” by the House of Representatives.
In 1804, the House of Representatives accused Samuel Chase (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) of letting his political leanings affect his rulings, and served him with eight articles of impeachment. One article concerned Chase’s handling of the trial of John Fries; two concerned his conduct in the trial of James Callender; four concerned Chase’s procedural errors on various matters; and the eighth article had to do with Chase’s “intemperate and inflammatory”; “indecent and unbecoming”; “highly unwarrantable”; and “highly indecent” remarks made to a Baltimore grand jury. In 1805, the Senate acquitted Chase of all charges, establishing the right of the judiciary to independent opinion. Chase continued on the Court until his death in June 1811.
In 1957, Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin signed a resolution passed by the Georgia General Assembly titled “The Impeachment of Certain U.S. Supreme Court Justices”. The resolution targeted six Supreme Court Justices (Earl Warren, Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Tom Campbell Clark, Felix Frankfurter, and Stanley Forman Reed) who were believed to be enabling communism with their decisions “for usurping the congressional power to make law in violation of Article I, Sections I and 8”, “violations of Sections 3 and 5 of the 14th Amendment”, and “nullification of the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.” Nothing ever came of their efforts. Signs were erected across the south saying “Impeach Earl Warren”, many of which were still standing when Warren retired from the bench in 1969.
Abe Fortas (served from 1965-1969) was almost impeached due to a tax and financial scandal involving Wall Street financier, Louis Wolfson. When President Richard Nixon learned of the scandal, he said Fortas should be “off of there”. The House of Representatives had already taken preliminary steps toward impeachment. Chief Justice Earl Warren urged Fortas to resign, to save the reputation of the Court. Fortas resisted at first, but eventually stepped down “to avoid damaging his wife’s legal career”.
Please teach your children how to read the constitution and THE BILL of RIGHTS.
bump
In the Anti-Federalist Papers, "Brutus," generally believed to be New York State Supreme Court Justice Robert Yates, likewise warned what would happen with an out-of-control activist judiciary, writing in his 15th essay that "The supreme court under this constitution would be exalted above all other power in the government, and subject to no control."
>>We the People should be telling the government what the Constitution and Bill of Rights mean. That’s our job! It’s what the Founding Fathers intended for us to do.<<
Thirty years ago i wouldn’t have had any problem with that. Now with this multiculturalist, hyphenated sickos I am unsure.
Time to start instruction.
seems to me that the extreme efforts made to seperate power and provide checks and balances was an admission by the framers that power corrupts.
Each branch of government is required by oath to uphold the Constitution.
The courts are merely another fail safe to stand between the Constitution and the legislative and executive branches possible breach of the Constitution.
The court actually has no ability to alter the Constitution.
If it fails to properly act in defense of that document it is as corrupted as the other branches and has no authority.
The States, as representing the people have more authority legally.
The Constitution ultimately is the people legal sheild against all of these institutions and empowers them to dismiss them at will.
Oh no. It started with John Marshall and the Marbury vs. Madison case in 1803 and has been building gradually ever since.
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