Show AMERICAN CONSERVATISM The supreme court is not an elective body and I suppose that might seem to the English Radical a sufficient reason for sweeping it away The judges are appointed ap-pointed for life by the president and they are responsible to no popular tribunal not even to public opinion They sit asa as-a court of pure law the final authority from which in all America there is no appeal Their jurisdiction strictly defined de-fined through it is coextensive with the whole Lnion I is the one instance in history in which popular sovereignty acknowledged as supreme in the long run for every other purpose and over every other authority to which it has delegated power submits to a master whom It did not appoint and cannot remove and cannot escape Everybody suomits the states themselves sovereign as they still are for certain purposes submit Congress and the president the army and navy the people themselves all submit I In the hands of the supreme court de mocracy aBel I I seeRs 10 pass an unconstitutional law is powerless A I unanimous vote of the people the unanimous unan-imous vote of the House and Senate and I I the approval of the president would not I mako a Statute law if this tribunal says lit I Is not a law But do you ever hear of a proposal to abolish the supreme court I Why not I is not only that the court I has been a great court of great judges Its honesty and ability and wisdom alike i recognized but because the American I I democracy has the good sense to see that under a written constitution like that of I the United States such a tribunal Is essential es-sential to the working of all its parts and that check and allpowerful check though it be upon democracy I is also a guarantee to the American people that in the words of the preamble of their great charter justice snail be established I and tho blessings of liberty preserved to I themselves and their posterity Tho 1 I Nineteenth Century I |