Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1906 — THE SUPREME COURT. [ARTICLE]

THE SUPREME COURT.

Timely auad Significant Warning* That Should Be Heeded. We have had several wise deliverances of late from Justice David J. Brewer, Hannis Taylor, Wayne MacVeagh and other eminent constitutional lawyers in opposition to the imperialistic tendencies of the supreme court of the United States. The best of these admonitory speeches perhaps was the one delivered by Mr. Taylor before the Maryland Bar association, but they were all timely and significant The tendency to amend the constitution by judicial construction Is truly ominous and is rendered more and more dangerous by the prevailing doctrine of the sanctity and Infallibility of the federal judiciary. Lack of Implicit confidence in the courts has been denounced as the very quintessence and deadly virus of anarchy—as treason of all other crimes In one. Yet overconfidence is the worst possible enemy of free Institutions. Jefferson once said: “It would be a dangerous delusion were our confidence In the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights. Confidence Is everywhere the parent of despotism. Free government Is founded in jealousy and not In confidence. It Is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power. Our constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence must go. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence In man, but bind him down from mischief by the claims of the constitution.” Overconfidence was no less emphatically reprobated by Madison, who said: “It js proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late revolution. The freemen of America did not wait until usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled Itself In precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided thb consequences by denying the principle.” The doctrine of Jefferson and Madison respecting confidence in public men, whether on the bench, In the legislature or In the executive offices, needs today to be applied as vigorously as It was In 1776. Judges are no more sacred than other servants. Their deliverances must be carefully scrutinized and impartially, but fearlessly, criticised. For In those decisions may lurk greater dangers than in any legislative or executive usurpation.