Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton
The story is told of the elderly judge who, looking back over a long career, observes with satisfaction that, when I was young, I probably let stand some convictions that should have been overturned, and when I was old I probably set aside some that should have stood; so overall, justice was done. I sometimes think that is an appropriate analogy to this Court’s constitutional jurisprudence, which alternately creates rights that the Constitution does not contain and denies rights that it does. Compare Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) (right to abortion does exist) with Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990) (right to be confronted with witnesses, U.S. Const., Amdt. 6, does not).
- County of Riverside v. McLaughlin, 500 U.S. 44 (1991) Justice Antonin Scalia (dissenting).
The Supreme Court has redefined the sovereign person who constitutes the government and invents its existence. When the Court acts against the truth in the constitution, the Court impeaches itself. This is true also of a president who acts against the constitution. The president who acts against the constitution and we, the people, all of our ancestors, this generation and our constitutional posterity, without another person, but his own Justice, impeaches himself, and, in the same way, that a condemned murderer is visited by his rejected Justice on the gallows.
Thank you Donald McClarey for Dr. Robert George.