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THE SUPREME COURT
bling of the earth and the stillness of the air are prophetic to our fears, and we turn to it instinctively for protection, let us ask ourselves, with all its imagined faults, what is there that can replace it? Strip it of its power, and what shall we get in exchange? Discord and confusion, statutes without obedience, Courts without authority, an anarchy of principles, and a chaos of decisions, till all law at last shall be extinguished by an appeal to arms."[1]
- ↑ Amer. Law Reg, (1856), IV, 129. See also American Government and Politics (1910), by Charles A. Beard, 814: "Some obvious lessons seem to come from a dispassionate review of the judicial conflicts which have occurred in our history. Criticism of the Federal Judiciary is not foreign to political contests; no party when it finds its fundamental interests adversely affected by judicial decisions seems to hesitate to express derogatory opinions; the wisest of our statesmen have agreed on the impossibility of keeping out of politics decisions of the Supreme Court which are political in their nature; finally, in spite of the attacks oi its critics and the fears of its friends, the Supreme Court yet abides with us as the very strong tower defending the American political system."
