Grim makes a very important point here.
...Nothing could be clearer than that the Federal courts have become too
powerful. Admittedly, this is an old argument for me. I've been
arguing it probably since I've been writing here, certainly since 2006
(see "The Judiciary" here).
The most important work we could do right now would be to strip the
Federal courts, and the Supreme Court, of much of their authority. The
Supreme Court's ability to amend the Constitution on the fly has risen
at the same time that increasing diversity in the nation has made
amending the Constitution legitimately, through Article V, more and more
difficult to accomplish.
The Supreme Court has become much like the One Ring. Instead of trying
to use that concentrated power to defend our position, we need to
destroy the power lest it fall into other hands....
...It is in the interest of nearly every American to disperse this
concentrated power, which is a threat to the peace and stability of the
Republic. Unfortunately, I suspect the siren song of power -- of
finally being able to force the other side to submit and obey -- will prove too strong.
The alternative is a giant bowl of Not Good.
By the way, if you think Grim is not your brand of thinker, how about Abe Lincoln?
...Perhaps the most famous opponent of judicial supremacy in our nation’s
history was Abraham Lincoln, who as President directly defied the
abominable and inhuman monstrosity that was Chief Justice Taney’s ruling
in 1857’s Dred Scott v. Sandford.
"...the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government
upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably
fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in
ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will
have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically
resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
Hmmmmmm?
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2 comments:
Yes, opposition to Dred Scott as I understand it was the main thing that drove Lincoln into politics. I wonder what Lincoln would have thought of that greatest of the tools of Reconstruction, the 14th Amendment, with its vast shift of power to the Federal courts?
As a matter of fact, that decision spurred the organization of the Republican Party, which happened in Wisconsin!
And if the 14th would have shocked his conscience, imagine what the 16th would have done to him...
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