Judicial ReEngineering

would use the power of judicial review loosely to impose their views about the "spirit" of the
Constitution:
“
[I]n
their decisions they will not confine themselves to any fixed or
established rules, but will determine, according to what appears to
them, the reason and spirit of the constitution. The opinions of the
supreme court, whatever they may be, will have the force of law;
because there is no power provided in the constitution, that can
correct their errors, or controul their adjudications. From this court
there is no appeal.
”
In 1820, Thomas Jefferson expressed his opposition to the doctrine of judicial review:
“
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 power [is] 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 co-equal and co-sovereign
within themselves.
”
In 1861, Abraham Lincoln touched upon the same subject, during his first inaugural address:
“
[T]he
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. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the
judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases
properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek
to turn their decisions to political purposes.
”
Page 54 of 115