• Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
Saturday, July 12, 2025
Illinois Review
  • Login
  • Register
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • World News
  • Second Amendment
No Result
View All Result
Illinois Review
No Result
View All Result
Home Illinois News

Judicial Usurpation and the Constitution: Historical and Contemporary Issues

Illinois Review by Illinois Review
November 16, 2018
in Illinois News
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
1
26
SHARES
431
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Unnamed

You might also like

Opinion: The IL GOP Belongs to the People — Not to Power-Hungry Insiders

Economos: Illinois’ Pension Crisis – A Tale of Mismanagement

Mayor Johnson: Chicago ‘Police Dept. Will Not Ever Cooperate with ICE’

Judicial supremacy gave us Dred Scott. Liberals are making hay of Matthew Whitaker’s views on Marbury v. Madison. Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus, for example, writes that the newly appointed Attorney General is a crackpot, citing his comments to the blog Caffeinated Thoughts in 2014. Asked to name some of the worst Supreme Court decisions, Whitaker replied: “I would start with the idea of Marbury v. Madison. That’s probably a good place to start and the way it’s looked at the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of constitutional issues.”

Is that really a crackpot view? Here is Robert George from a 2005 paper published by The Heritage Foundation:

It is worth remembering that the power of judicial review is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. The courts themselves have claimed this power based on inferences drawn from the Constitution’s identification of itself as supreme law, and the nature of the judicial office. Yet even if we credit these inferences, as I am inclined to do, it must be said that early supporters of judicial review, including Chief Justice Marshall himself, did not imagine that the federal and state courts would exercise the sweeping powers they have come to exercise today. […]

As for Marshall’s ruling in Marbury, a good case can be made that the power he actually claimed for the courts was quite limited. Remember: What the Supreme Court decided in that case was that the Court itself was forbidden by the Constitution to exercise original jurisdiction putatively conferred upon it by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Marshall reasoned that the Constitution, in Article III, fixed the Court’s original jurisdiction, and Congress was powerless under the Constitution to expand it. According to the contemporary constitutional scholar Robert Lowry Clinton, all this meant was that the Court was relying on its own interpretation of the Constitution in deciding what it could and could not do within its own sphere. This was entirely consistent with its recognizing a like power of the other branches of government to interpret the Constitution for themselves in deciding what they could and could not do in carrying out their constitutional functions.

However that may be, the power of the judiciary has expanded massively. This expansion began slowly. Even if we read Marbury more broadly than Professor Clinton reads it, treating it as a case in which the justices presumed to tell the Congress what it could and could not do, it would be another fifty-four years before the Supreme Court would do it again. And it could not have chosen a worse occasion. […]

In 1857, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney handed down an opinion for the Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. That opinion, which among other things declared even free blacks to be non-citizens, and Congress to be powerless to restrict slavery in the federal territories, intensified the debate about slavery and dramatically increased the prospects for civil war.

[Robert George, “Judicial Usurpation and the Constitution: Historical and Contemporary Issues,” The Heritage Foundation, April 11, 2005]

Related

Tags: Illinois Review
Share10Tweet7
Previous Post

Women’s Lives Matter

Next Post

Illinois Arena Infection

Illinois Review

Illinois Review

Recommended For You

Opinion: The IL GOP Belongs to the People — Not to Power-Hungry Insiders

by Jacqueline Garretson
July 11, 2025
0
Opinion: The IL GOP Belongs to the People — Not to Power-Hungry Insiders

By Jacqueline Garretson, Opinion ContributorA few months ago, I had the opportunity to speak on a podcast where I shared my personal journey in politics, how I became...

Read moreDetails

Economos: Illinois’ Pension Crisis – A Tale of Mismanagement

by James P. Economos, DDS
July 8, 2025
0
Economos: Illinois’ Pension Crisis – A Tale of Mismanagement

By James P. Economos, DDS, Opinion Contributor There’s been constant debate over Illinois' pension system – and for good reason. It remains chronically underfunded and plagued with issues...

Read moreDetails

Mayor Johnson: Chicago ‘Police Dept. Will Not Ever Cooperate with ICE’

by Illinois Review
July 8, 2025
0
Mayor Johnson: Chicago ‘Police Dept. Will Not Ever Cooperate with ICE’

By Illinois ReviewAt a Tuesday morning press conference at Chicago City Hall, Mayor Brandon Johnson — whose approval rating hovers around six percent — reiterated that local law...

Read moreDetails

Chicago AM560 Axes Local Morning Radio Personality Amy Jacobson, Keeps Florida-based Host in Cost-Cutting Move

by Illinois Review
July 1, 2025
0
Chicago AM560 Axes Local Morning Radio Personality Amy Jacobson, Keeps Florida-based Host in Cost-Cutting Move

By Illinois ReviewIn a shocking cost-cutting move Tuesday, Chicago’s AM560 The Answer terminated longtime morning host Amy Jacobson, as the struggling conservative station grapples with declining relevance –...

Read moreDetails

JB Pritzker Receives 2% in Presidential Poll, Ranks Lowest in Minority Support Among Democrats

by Illinois Review
June 30, 2025
0
JB Pritzker Receives 2% in Presidential Poll, Ranks Lowest in Minority Support Among Democrats

By Illinois ReviewIn one of the first nationwide hypothetical polls for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, Illinois Governor and billionaire JB Pritzker ranks at the bottom, receiving the...

Read moreDetails
Next Post

Illinois Arena Infection

Please login to join discussion

Best Dental Group

Related News

IL Freedom Caucus calls on Lurie Children’s Hospital to cease gender services for kids

October 27, 2022

Beckman: Is the Brigham Young University racial slur controversy another hoax?

October 27, 2022

Salvi polling shows closer race

October 27, 2022

Browse by Category

  • America First
  • Education
  • Faith & Family
  • Foreign Policy
  • Health Care
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • Opinion
  • Science
  • Second Amendment
  • TRENDING
  • US NEWS
  • US Politics
  • World News
Illinois Review

© 2024 llinois Review LLC Editor in Chief Mark Vargas Publisher Thomas McCullagh Chief Counsel Scott Kaspar

Navigate Site

  • Checkout
  • Home
  • Home – mobile
  • Login/Register
  • Login/Register
  • My account
  • My Account-
  • My Account- – mobile

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Illinois News
  • Illinois Politics
  • US Politics
  • Health Care
  • US NEWS
  • America First
  • Opinion
  • TRENDING
  • Education
  • Foreign Policy
  • Second Amendment
  • Faith & Family
  • Science
  • World News

© 2024 llinois Review LLC Editor in Chief Mark Vargas Publisher Thomas McCullagh Chief Counsel Scott Kaspar

Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?