Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-07-12
JUDICIAL SUPREMACY
IS UNWARRANTEO

The jurisdiction conferred on the
supreme court by the Constitution.
Art. III, is small, and then follows:
I'm all the other cases before men
toned, the supreme court shall have
appellate jurisdiction, both as to law
and fact, with such exceptions and
under such regulations as congress
shall make"
The inferior courts are ordained
and established" by congress, which
must prescribe the limits of their
jurisdiction. The claim of suprem-
acy by the judiciary over it's creator
is therefore not authorized. 1t is as
serted that it is necessary to the in
dependence" of the judiciary. In
fact. it is the assumption by it of SUI
preme, irresponsible and autocratic
power.
OF course every department of the
government takes an oath to sup
port the Constitution. But the SUI
preme power to review whether they
do or not is reserved to the people.
and is nowhere given to the judi
ciary.
II congress disobeys the Constitu-
ton the members of both the house
and senate are chosen by the people
and can be reviewed at the next cleo
ton.
If the judiciary do an unconstitu-
tional act they are not chosen by the
hN rnx,fn a
next election. That they have acted
unconstitutionally has been held by
themselves in reversing the legal ten
der decision; in the income tax deci-
sion; in the 10-hOur case tLochner
easel, virtually reversed i'll the
Adamson law case, and in other
cases.
In the income tax case the last de-
cision was wrong, and it required IL
years to get the evil corrected by
constitutional amendment, and IN the
meantime that one vote of one judge
transferred 5000 millions of dollars
taxation from the predatory rich. and
placed it upon the producing classes
of the country.
Is It not worth while to prevent
other abuses by an irresponsible
court, a bare majority of whom may
again, as so often in the past, mis-
take their own economic views for
the Constitution?
An act similar to that now pro-
posed by Senator Owen, depriving the
court of Jurisdiction over the recon-
struction acts, was admitted by the
court itself as depriving them OF
mower in McCardle eX parte 6 Wal
lace 1924.
The first usurpation in 'Marbury
VS.. Madison" during the incumbency
NJ Chief Justice Marshall. was made
nv an obiter dictum and was not re-
heated as to an act of congress for
IA wears, in the bred Scott case, and
This brings me to the purport of this
article. which is to call attention to
the motive for the obiter dictum in
the Marbury case, as follows:
In laying the foundation of the
Constitution there began the trouble
between the free and slavery system
If labor, which was continuous
struggle down to 1861. 1t was COM
promised by the Constitution giving
three-fifths of vote to slave owners
as representatives of their slaves. 1t
was recognized that by the increase
of the white vote at the North, as
we'll as by immigration, the South
would soon lose control of the house
and that it would ultimately lose the
control Of the senate, though for a
long time the parity was kept up by
always admitting slave state and
a free state at the same time. On
the admission of Missouri in 1920 we
came near a dissolution of the Union.
The Mexican war was largely caused
nv an effort to maintain the political