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Encyclopedia of the Supreme court
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States. In decisions such as Bush v. Gore, Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of
Education, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, and Miranda v.
Arizona, the Court has determined the outcome of a presidential race,
declared women have the right to abortions, struck down segregation, upheld
campaign finance reform laws, and stipulated that police officers must inform
those accused of crime their rights.
Yet this mighty power of the Supreme Court is not of recent origin.
Instead, throughout American history it has often been a major player in
American politics, deciding over time that states could deny women the right
to vote in Minor v. Happersett, that African Americans were property and not
citizens (Dred Scott v. Sandford), that gays and lesbians did not have the same
rights as heterosexuals (Bowers v. Hardwick), and that Congress could create
a national bank (McCulloch v. Maryland). In each of these opinions, the
Supreme Court stepped into the middle of major legal debates, but it also
issued decisions that addressed important political battles of the day. Yet this
is not what the constitutional framers seemed to envision.
In 1787 in Federalist Paper 78 Alexander Hamilton described the
Supreme Court as the “least dangerous branch” of the proposed national government.
It would be an institution that would have the power of judgment and
not will, such that it would not be able to substitute its views or opinions for
that of Congress.
Yet despite this initial plan that envisioned the Supreme Court as perhaps a
minor player in American politics, it has instead become a forceful and powerful
branch coequal in many ways to that of Congress and the president. In its more
than 200-year existence, the Supreme Court has ventured decisions on almost
every aspect of American life, from the most intimate issues about abortion,
procreation, and the right to die to major disputes over the power of the president
to act in foreign affairs or the ability of Congress to regulate commerce.
Alexis de Tocqueville penned in Democracy in America (1841) that “There
is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later
turn into a judicial one.” The history of the United States Supreme Court
amply proves de Tocqueville correct—the courts, and especially the United
States Supreme Court, is in fact often the final arbiter of many, if not all, of
the major disputes in the country.
David Schultz - Personal Name
ISBN 0-8160-5086-4
NONE
Accounting
English
2005
USA
1-575
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