that the chief attack was made on this form of judicial power.[1]
Whatever may have been the attitude of the Anti-Federalist and of the Southern statesman at a later date, it is clear that at the outset they fully recognized and indorsed the exercise of judicial review. This was very strongly shown during a debate which had occurred in June, 1789, in the First Congress, when a bill was proposed making the Secretary of Foreign Affairs removable by the President. Objection being raised to the constitutionality of this measure, it was emphatically contended by the Congressmen from the Southern States and by the Anti-Federalists that Congress ought not to legislate, since the question of the President's power to remove was one which must be settled by the Judiciary.[2] Abraham Baldwin of Georgia said: "It is their province to decide upon our laws and if they find them to be unconstitutional, they will not hesitate to declare it so." John Page of Virginia said that the Constitution ought to be left "to the proper expositors of it"—the Judges. William Smith of South Carolina stated that the question of the President's right of removal should be "left to the decision of the Judiciary", who on a mandamus "would determine whether the President exercised a constitutional authority or not." This statement was very significant, in view of the fact that Jefferson, fourteen years
- ↑ See A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (1795), by Zephaniah Swift, I, 51-55; Iredell, II, letter of Spaight, Aug. 12, 1787; see also infra, 257. It is interesting to note that the Anti-Federalists were equally pleased when, in 1792, President Washington curbed the power of Congress by vetoing a statute apportioning Congressmen, on the ground that it was unconstitutional. "This Act of decision, firmness and independence," wrote James Monroe to John Breckenridge, "has presented a ray of hope to the desponding, in and out of the republican party. He inspires men with a confidence that the government contains within itself a resource capable of resisting every encroachment on the publick rights." Breckenridge Papers MSS, letter of April 6, 1792.
- ↑ 1st Cong,, 1st Sess., debate in the House, June 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 1789.
