The Constitution: The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court seems to have the last say over every questionable problem from abortion to weapon control to same-sex marriage. Is that what the Framers of the Constitution intended?

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Script:

Of the three branches of federal government– the legislative (the House of Representatives and the Senate), the Executive (the President), and the Judicial (the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts)– which is the most powerful?

Today, most people would probably state … the Judicial. It’s the Supreme Court that has the final say over every questionable problem. Prayer in school? Abortion? Same-sex marital relationship? “Let the Court choose” is the contemporary refrain.

But that’s a long method from how the Framers saw the role of the courts.

Let’s take a look at what the Constitution says.

Article III, Section 1 vests the nation’s “judicial power” in a Supreme Court and any lower courts that Congress might develop.

” The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices throughout good behaviour, and will … get for their services, a compensation, which will not be reduced […]”.

By “great behaviour” the Framers suggested life time tenure. As long as federal judges didn’t do anything worthwhile of impeachment, they had the job for life or till they selected to offer it up.

The purpose of life time tenure and income was to position federal judges above politics, to make them independent of the executive and legal branches. In this method, they would act as another check on the power of those 2 branches.

Yet for all that, Alexander Hamilton thought the judiciary was “beyond comparison the weakest of the 3” branches.

Kid, was he incorrect– however not in his assessment of the judicial branch as spelled out in the Constitution.

As Hamilton described, the Executive bears the sword, or the power to persuade. Congress sets the guidelines and manages the handbag– the federal budget plan.

He could not see any because he and the other Framers never ever imagined that the Court would be the supreme arbiter of what was “Constitutional” and what wasn’t. They saw the court as having a lot more minimal function– as we will see.

The Constitution doesn’t even mention how many justices there must be. That was set by the first Congress of 1789. They set the number of Justices at six which, to our modern-day sensibility, is strange. What would occur in the case of a tie vote?

Once again, this points to the Framers’ modest conception of the Court.

As defined in Section 2 of Article III, federal courts have simply one job: to settle disputes about the rights of the parties before them– not to use cases as platforms to solve policy arguments. For the Framers, setting policy was the task of the peoples’ elected agents.

What about the capability to declare laws unconstitutional: didn’t that come from the courts? Yes, but that didn’t make courts the only authority on the Constitution.

As comprehended by the , the legal and executive branches have their own responsibility– and power– to interpret the Constitution when doing their tasks. Presidents have vetoed costs they considered unconstitutional. That’s what Andrew Jackson did when he refused to recharter the national bank in 1832. He didn’t believe the Constitution offered Congress the authority to develop such an institution.

True, the President and Congress have typically followed the Court’s readings of the Constitution as a way of avoiding unneeded dispute. There have actually been exceptions.

For the complete script, go to: https://www.prageru.com/video/the-constitution-the-supreme-court.

source

The Supreme Court appears to have the last say over every controversial concern from abortion to weapon control to same-sex marriage. It’s the Supreme Court that has the final say over every controversial concern. “Let the Court choose” is the contemporary refrain.

As understood by the , the executive and legislative branches have their own duty– and power– to analyze the Constitution when doing their tasks. He didn’t believe the Constitution offered Congress the authority to develop such an institution.