When considering some of the judicial decisions handed down recently, particularly from the federal bench, I am laboring to understand both why and how we have allowed the judicial branch of government to become our omnipotent dictators.
Much of this stems from the idea that it is the duty of the Supreme Court to “interpret” the Constitution. Well, I have read the Constitution several times, together with the Federalist as well as a host of available data from the framers and I am at a loss to find any reference to the Supreme Court being solely vested with the power to “interpret” the Constitution. [Please note that when I use the word “Constitution” I include both the original document and the amendments thereto as amendments once ratified become part of the document as though included in the original draft thereof.]
Perhaps we can begin with the word “interpret”. The term embodies such acts as explaining that which is unclear, generally foreign, in terms common to the listener. Am I to understand then that the Constitution was written in language so ambiguous, so foreign to the predominantly English-speaking American people that they should require a cadre of all-seeing, all-knowing wise men/women to “interpret” or translate it?
Unfortunately this term, as used in this case, is intended to mean that the Supreme Court is vested with the authority to “reinterpret” the Constitution in a manner more conducive to our times. This view places the Supreme Court, and in fact the whole of the judiciary, in the roll of dictator, rather than impartial arbiter. A dictator maintains power by being both unaccountable to the people and unimpeded in ambitions by the law, for the dictator can, whenever the laws stand in opposition to his goals, change the law by force of will. Clearly our judiciary in more ways than not, are unaccountable to the governed and whenever they find that the law, whether it be the Constitution or acts of legislators, is inconsistent with their views on “social justice” and desires for same, have the power and the consent of their Leftist enablers to reinterpret the law. We are no longer governed by the Rule of Law. We are now governed by the Rule of Lawmakers.
This development was feared by members of the original Constitutional Convention who raised objections to the “authority of the proposed Supreme Court”:
“The authority of the proposed Supreme Court of the United States,
which is to be a separate and independent body, will be superior to that of the
legislature. The power of construing the laws according to the spirit of the
Constitution will enable that court to mould them into whatever shape it may
think proper; especially as its decisions will not be in any manner subject to
the revision or correction of the legislative body. This is as unprecedented as
it is dangerous…..the errors and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United
States will be uncontrollable and remediless.”
It is interesting to note that Alexander Hamilton dismissed these objections as “made up of false reasoning upon misconceived facts.” It is then to our advantage that Hamilton’s view did not carry. The Supreme Court was not vested with any power to construe the Constitution beyond the expressed letter of the law and when the desires of the people or the acts of legislators are at variance with the Constitution, the Constitution shall be the superior.
Were it the intention of the framers to place the Supreme Court in a superior position to the Constitution, there would have been no need for Article V which delineates the amendment process. They could simply have dispensed with the debates regarding the propriety of super majorities and simply made it possible to change this document with a mere vote of five.
The Constitution was not written to be an unalterable document covering every conceivable issue known or to come. Rather, it was intended to be the guide. The Framers understood that times would come when changes would be necessary and had the wisdom and the humility to include a procedure for accomplishing such changes. This procedure did not include any mention of the judiciary.
Just as the Renaissance led the people to understand that they had unwittingly surrendered their own innate common sense and sound judgment to men of the cloth, we must also take control of our lives and dispense with the idea that the Constitution is such a sacred and ambiguous document that it should only be read and can only be understood by lawyers in black robes.