HAS THE CONSTITUTION GONE?

Authors

John A. Fairlie, University of Illinois

Abstract

As far back as 1828, Chief Justice Marshall is quoted as saying: "Should Jackson be elected, I shall look upon the government as virtually dissolved." A few years later, when Taney was appointed Chief Justice by Jackson, Daniel Webster wrote: "Judge Story thinks the Supreme Court is gone, and I think so too." Soon afterwards, when the newly constituted Court rendered decisions upholding statutes from which Story dissented, the latter wrote to Judge McLean: "There will not, I fear, ever in our day, be any case in which a law of a State or of Congress will be declared unconstitutional; for the old constitutional doctrines are fast fading away." About the same time Chancellor Kent wrote to Story: "I have lost my confidence and hopes in the constitutional guardianship and protection of the Supreme Court." Another writer of the time stated that, "Under the progressive genius of this new judicial administration we can see the whole fair system of the constitution beginning to dissolve, like the baseless fabric of a vision."

Recommended Citation

John A. Fairlie, HAS THE CONSTITUTION GONE?, 33 Mich. L. Rev. 1037 (1935).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol33/iss7/4