CHAPTER II SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES The Supreme Court of the United States is absolute in its interpretation of the law. No czar of Russia or Venetian doge or despot of the Orient ever exercised so great authority because they never commanded at all times the respect and awe justly accorded the Supreme Court by all classes and conditions of men. There lies no appeal from its mandates, and its justices are responsible only to their own consciences. Holding a life tenure of office, they have no need to entertain sentiments of either fear or favor from any authority whatever. Their action is alone controlled by the will of the people as expressed in the Constitution and so long as the Constitution endures as the supreme law of the land, so long will the Supreme Court exercise absolute authority within its proper sphere. Any abuse of that authority will inevitably result in the wrecking of the Constitution itself and general chaos so far as the present system of government is concerned. A knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon character, diluted as it may be by a mixed immigration, precludes anything more than a very remote possibility of such a catastrophe. President Taft in an address before the Business Men's League at St. Louis, Mo., on the fourth of May, 1910, paid the following tribute to the Supreme Court and explained his conception of the relations of the executive to it as well as the responsibility in the appointment of justices. This address was delivered shortly after the appointment of former Governor Charles E. Hughes of New York to be associate justice and some weeks after the appointment and confirmation of Justice Lurton. Both appointments had been criticised in certain quarters. President Taft said: The Constitution of the United States was made by the people of the United States, and we have a popular and representative government; but the people who framed the Constitution realized that in order to secure the best government they must impose limitations upon themselves so that the result of the views of the majority should be embodied in law and national policies through certain instrumentalities that would impose obstructions to sudden emotional movements of the people that were not taken with the deliberation necessary to secure wisdom and that ought to be delayed and held up until they could pass under the observation not only of Philip drunk, but of Philip sober. And so it was that in the division of power they created a legislative branch, an executive branch and a judicial branch, and in that Constitution they gave to the Supreme Court and the subordinate tribunals to be established by Congress certain powers which, interpreted by Marshall and those who followed him, make that court unique in the tribunals of the world. That court was constituted to preserve the rights of the people and the rights of individuals against the people themselves whenever in the heat of emotion or temporary aberration they enacted measures that deprived the individual of his just rights under the Constitution. Hence it is that to me, a lawyer, the Supreme Court of the United States, is the most sacred thing that we have in this government, and that the appointment of men to that bench is the highest and most sacred function that the Executive has to perform. I am not exalting the judiciary above the legislative or the executive branch, or saying that the judicial has any more power than the executive when the Executive is within his functions, or when the legislative is within its functions, for the Supreme Court has laid down plainly the limitations. In the construction of certain statutes the Executive is uncontrolled by the Supreme Court or the legislature. Within its functions, as defined by the Constitution, the Legislature has entire discretion, but when it comes to say whether either of the other branches has passed beyond its limitations it is the Supreme Court that ultimately must be the deciding tribunal, if that question can be presented in litigated form to that tribunal, for the Supreme Court is not constituted to give opinions on mooted cases or prepared cases to the other branches of the government. The case must arise in litigation between parties, so that in the termination of the rights of the parties the court shall express what is law and what are the limitations of the various branches of the government. Now I do not like to be invidious in my remarks, or to quote what may have been a misquotation, but I did hear or see a criticism of one appointment on the ground, as I understood it, that the appointee was not an implacable foe of wealth and corporations. I think perhaps that criticism has been misunderstood and that the utterer of it did not intend to give it the meaning that, thus stated, it seems to have. I believe that all, Democrats and Republicans, Republicans and insurgents, who are patriotic citizens, and we all are that, are in favor of having upon that bench men who are foes of nothing but what is wrong, and are in favor of equal justice to every one, whether that be an organization of men doing business under the law and using the instrumentality of a corporation to promote the industries of the country, or be the humblest citizen struggling with his hands to earn a livelihood for his family. I do not mean to say that men by their habits of life may not acquire a bent or a prejudice in one direction or another and that it isn't wise to select for the highest tribunal men who have not such a bent and who have not in their make-up the danger of prejudice to one interest or against another. But I do mean to say that there is in the public journals and in what I may call the cant of the demagogues a disposition to charge that kind of a bent in favor of corporate wealth and corporate greed and corporate monopoly when there is no justice in the charge at all. This assumption of peculiar honesty manifested by class declaration and the stirring up of class spirit is something that ought to be deprecated in our republic or else it will lead to great danger. We ought to take up the discussion of public questions and discuss their effect with judicial calmness and not have our minds diverted by charges of prejudice and corrupt motives; I say charges utterly unsupported by evidence or calm consideration. All foreign students and observers of this country's institutions from De Tocqueville to Mr. James Bryce have nothing but praise for our wonderful system of Federal judiciary and especially for the Supreme Court. The sentiments of De Tocqueville on that subject are of peculiar interest not only because he is singularly temperate and convincing in his statements but also because he came to this country early enough in its development to study its institutions unbiased by any accounts of previous writers of note and late enough to observe those institutions after they had reached some degree of maturity. The distinguished Frenchman wrote his book in 1833 when Andrew Jackson was president and John Marshall was chief justice of the Supreme Court. "When we have examined in detail the organization of the Supreme Court," he says, "and the entire prerogatives 1 which it exercises, we shall readily admit that a more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people. The Supreme Court is placed higher by the nature of its rights and the class of justiciable parties which it controls." After calling attention to the fact that no European nation has left all judicial controversies to the judges of common law, De Tocqueville continues: "In America this theory has actually been put in practice; and the Supreme Court of the United States is sole tribunal of the nation. . . . Its sole object is to enforce the execution of the laws of the Union; and the Union only regulates the relations of the government with the citizens of the nation and with foreign powers. The peace, the prosperity and the very existence of the Union are vested in the hands of the seven Federal judges. Without them the Constitution would be a dead letter; the Executive appeals to them for assistance against the encroachments of the legislative power; the Legislature demands their protection against the assaults of the Executive; they defend the Union from the disobedience of the States, the States from the exaggerated claims of the Union, the public interests from private interests and the conservative spirit of stability against the fickleness of the democracy. Their power is enormous but it is the power of public opinion. They are all powerful as long as the people respect the law; but they would be impotent against popular neglect or contempt of the law. . If the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war." The power of the judiciary has been created by gradual process not only for the obvious purpose of punishing offenders but also for the establishment of a defensive force by means of which the people, without resorting to overt acts, may be protected against encroachment on their rights by either the legislative or executive branches of the Federal government or by the acts of the individual States. In this age of orderly procedure and respect for authority the danger of such encroachment against the individual may appear to be more fanciful than real, but it must be borne in mind that an ever ready remedy minimizes the gravity of any incipient ill. The Supreme Court in fact is a remedy ready at hand for most of the ills that injustice gives rise to or that the larger entity of the State may cause through fear, jealousy or perhaps honest error. It is not the least remarkable evidence of the wisdom of the fathers of the Constitution that the judiciary which they created in principle has so adequately met the needs of the more complicated civilization of our day that we are almost oblivious of its need. The care with which the judiciary was made independent of the executive and legislative branches is an effective safeguard of judicial utility in the highest sense. Among all the functuaries created by the Constitution the justices of the Federal courts hold a tenure of office during good behavior, that is to say, for life. They can be removed only by impeachment. So grave a duty have the presidents of the United States always regarded the appointment of justices of the Supreme Court that there is on record only one case of an attempt at impeachment, that against Samuel Chase of Maryland. In the lower Federal courts there have been only three cases of attempted impeachment, all three recipients of this attention having been judges of the District Courts. Of these one was acquitted and two were convicted. Associate Justice Samuel Chase was an appointee of President Washington. He assumed the judicial robes in 1796 after having served five years as chief justice of the General Court of Maryland. He had thus been on the Supreme Court bench about eight years when impeachment proceedings were instituted against him. On the fifth of January, 1804, John Randolph of Virginia on the floor of the House of Representatives demanded an inquiry into Justice Chase's judicial conduct while sitting on the United States Circuit Court bench in Philadelphia, Pa., Richmond, Va. and elsewhere. Charges had been tentatively proposed against Justice Chase in the previous Congress. Mr. Randolph moved for the appointment of a committee. The motion was carried |