Although the U.S. Constitution art. 3 is not specific regarding the agenda of the Supreme Court, our founders made their intentions on this matter clear in the Federalist Papers (1777-78) by giving rationale for ratifying the Constitution which was accomplished on June 17, 1778. In the government document “The Court and Constitutional Interpretation,” James Madison is summarized to have said, “Constitutional interpretation must be left to the reasoned judgment of independent judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the political process. If every constitutional question were to be decided by public political bargaining…, the Constitution would be reduced to a battleground of competing factions, political passion and partisan spirit.” The document further says, “Despite this background, the Court’s power of judicial review was not confirmed until 1803, when it was invoked by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. In this decision, the Chief Justice asserted that the Supreme Court's responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of its sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. That oath could not be fulfilled any other way. "It is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the law is."[1]
In Federalist Paper 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote,
“the courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to the Court to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.”[2]
When at the hearings, Democrat U.S. Senators railed against Amy Coney Barrett’s apparent political stance or bemoaned the ultimate standard to which she would appeal her deliberations, they are betraying a profound ignorance of the historical formation and development of the Court.
[1]The
[Supreme] Court and Constitutional Interpretation.” https://www.supremecourt.gov/ about/constitutional.
aspx#:~:text=As%20the%20final%20arbiter%20of,Justice%20Charles%20Evans%20Hughes%20observed.
https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-71-80
(all boldface mine).
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