Page:History of the Supreme court of the United States (IA historyofsupreme00myeriala).pdf/139



If the various elements dissatisfied with the Constitution were led into attaching too much importance to the question of representation in Congress, and too little to the immense potential consequence of the Federal judiciary, the powerful landed class fully understood the supreme might of the courts.

As the superlative court of courts, the newly created Supreme Court of the United States was rightly anticipated by the manorial lords as the chief instrument by which their interests would be conserved and enlarged. Holding an inherited anid expanding power, the accretion of centuries, and owning vast estates, the land grandees did not purpose to surrender either wealth or power. Their one guiding aim was to hold, and extend, both. The import of such concessions as during those threatening times had to be made to the populace was cunningly magnified, but a considerable body of the artisans, laborers and small farmers were by no means deceived. Gloss and fine phrases aside, they saw with alarm that not only had the essentials of the old conditions been retained, but that the landholding families and traders were now exercising limitless license in securing great new accumulations of property, and securing the passage of whatever laws their interests and designs required.

The Revolution had established the principle of resorting to force to accomplish changes. With this "perilous" idea permeating the "lower orders," there was a considerable degree