The Daily Alaska empire., 1935-03-06

should have been actually strengthened. Instances have occurred in history when the rendering Of
 a decision, unpaatabe to the Executive to leg
 islative majorities, has caused open collision be-
 tween those branches of government and the
 judicial There have been more occasions
 when through stress of circumstances, public
 confidence in certain important rulings of the court
 was shaken. The celebrated Dred Scott decision, at
 the climax of the slavery contest in 1857, was in
 that category. On more than one other occasion
 the public manifested toward the courts procedure
 an mpatience which sometimes approached popular
 disrespect This vsiby followed the courts reversal lof attitude the Legal Tender cases in the Seven ties and the similar change within two months of
 the courts majority of 1895 the constitutionay iof the income tax.
 President Jefferson, whose high political qualities were sometimes tarnished by his partisan rancor placed in the way of decisions series of deliberate oostructons. The remark ascribed to President Jackson, that John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it. may be only political tradition. but there is TO doubt that or occasion Jackson, through his personal unwilling
 ness to carry out the courts decisions made futile certain of its judgments which did not fit in with his plans. Not less unpleasant was the deliberate
 undertaking by excited and infatuated Congress-
 onal majority in the Reconstruction days, to cripple the courts machinery and authority
 Such impairment of public esteem as these oc-
 currences may have caused was, however, neye,
 permanent The peoples confidence in the Supreme Court institution of Government was too strong to be destroyed It has visbly grown with time. Throughout the courts checkered history thinking Americans have, consciously or uncon-
 sciously, adopted ex-President Madisons judgment
 that supremacy of Constitution and law without a
 supremacy in both exposition and execution of
 them, would be as muc ah mockery scabbard put into the hands of a soldier without sword in it' Theodore Roosevelt paid public tribute to the immense part played by the Supreme Court" lin clarifying the great policies through and by means of which the country has moved on to her present position" Webster, far back as 1880, expressed the judgment in which subsequent gen. lerations have concurred:
 There gre in the Constitution grants of powers to Congress and restrictions on those powers Some authority must, therefore, naturally exist, having the ultimate juris- diction to fix and ascertain the nterpre- tation of these grants restrictions and pre- hibtions To whom lies the last appeal? This, sir, the Constitution itself decides also by declaring that "the judicial shall extend to all arising under the Con- stitution and laws of the United States They are, in truth the keystone of the arch These two provisions the whole ground Cur First Congress, Webster continued, provided
 for the United States the necessary machinery for
 the high judiciary. Tt then, sir, became a gov ernment and, but for this, it would in all prob ability have been among things which are
 past"