1670. CONSTITUTION (The Federal), Construction of.—[further continued].
In denying the right they
[the Supreme Court] usurp of exclusively explaining
the Constitution, I go further than
you do, if I understand rightly your quotation
from the Federalist, of an opinion that
“the judiciary is the last resort in relation to
the other departments of the government, but
not in relation to the rights of the parties to
the compact under which the judiciary is derived.
” If this opinion be sound, then indeed
is our Constitution a complete felo de se.
For intending to establish three departments,
co-ordinate and independent, that they might
check and balance one another, it has given,
according to this opinion, to one of them
alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government
of the others, and to that one, too,
which is unelected by and independent of the
nation. For experience has already shown
that the impeachment it has provided is not
even a scare-crow; that such opinions as
the one you combat, sent cautiously out, as
you observe also, by detachment, not belonging
to the case often, but sought for out of it,
as if to rally the public opinion beforehand to
their views, and to indicate the line they are
to walk in, have been so quietly passed over
as never to have excited animadversion, even
in a speech of any one of the body entrusted
with impeachment. The Constitution, on this
hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the
hands of the judiciary, which they may twist
and shape into any form they please. * * *
My construction of the Constitution is very
different from that you quote. It is that each
department is truly independent of the others,
and has an equal right to decide for itself
what is the meaning of the Constitution in
the cases submitted to its action; and especially,
where it is to act ultimately and without
appeal.—
To Spencer Roane. Washington ed. vii, 134.
Ford ed., x, 140.
(P.F.,,
18191819)gt;
