Historical Quotes about the U.S. Judiciary
Alexander Hamilton
1788 - Federalist No. 81
Category: Judiciary
[T]here
is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly
empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the
spirit of the Constitution.
spirit of the Constitution.
Reference: Hamilton, Federalist No. 81 (482)
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Alexander Hamilton
1788 - Federalist No. 81
Category: Judiciary
In
the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under
consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe
the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives
them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the
courts of every State.
Reference: Hamilton, Federalist No. 81.
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Thomas Jefferson
1823 - letter to Monsieur A. Coray
Category: Judiciary
At
the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were
supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the
government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to
become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided
for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office;
that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass
silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions,
nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little,
the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by
construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and
helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In
truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all
liability to account.
Reference: respec. Quoted
