Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/55

Rh is held that the court by action of Congress may here after be constituted differently, and we have a memorable precedent of the enlargement of the court and of the appointment of additional justices, whose opinions were well known in advance, in order to secure a reversal of the legal tender decision. Jefferson, in 1820, saw how by the silent and potential influence of judicial interpretation, the government was in great danger, and he wrote to Thomas Ritchie: &quot;The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working underground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric * * * a judiciary independent of a king or executive alone [i]s a good thing, but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government.&quot; The powers reserved in the tenth amendment are not only reserved against the Federal government in whole, but against each department, the judicial as well as the legislative and executive. Otherwise the Federal sphere is supreme and the spheres of the States are subordinate. It cannot be tolerated for a moment that the Supreme court has the right to modify every power inhering in the State governments, or undelegated by the people, so as to exempt its own action from their influence. That would be to concentrate absolute sovereignty in the court. If the Federal government, in its entirety, has no authority in the last resort to judge of the extent of its own powers, how can a single department, even the Supreme court, have this authority? What folly for the States to reserve powers against the Federal government, if that government, in whole or in part, has the ultimate decision as to what was reserved! To the Supreme court all the jurisdiction which properly belongs is cheerfully yielded, but in it no more than in the other departments can be safely reposed the trust of ascertaining, defining or limiting the undelegated powers of the States.