Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/848

 The Supreme Court: An American Ideal.

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THE SUPREME COURT: AN AMERICAN IDEAL. BY RUPERT SARGENT HOLLAND, Of the Philadelphia Bar. the two qualities—efficiently ideal, practi AMERICANS are not given to the cally Utopian? pursuit of political ideals; as a people we may delude ourselves with How has the Court stood before the the thought; as individuals we scoff. world? That great French scholar of con Yet at the apex of our government stitutional governments, De Tocqueville, we come upon an ideal, conceded to be such writing in the early days of our nation, said bj the wise of all nations; an ideal which is of the Court that "a more imposing judicial power was never constituted by any people. not an illusion, which is not of the same fabric as the conception of democracy, but The Supreme Court is placed higher than which stands before us in practical form. An any known tribunal, both by the nature of its English observer of American life said re rights and the class of justiciable parties cently:—"It is a continual wonder to me that which it controls. "In all the civilized countries of Europe," your Federal Supreme Court still exists. It is essentially an ideal body, and you Ameri he continues, "the government has always cans cherish so few political ideals." The shown the greatest reluctance to allow the ssme comment is made time and again by cases in which it was itself interested to be such of our transatlantic visitors as study the decided by the ordinary course of justice. Court in its workings, but so used have we This repugnance is naturally greater as the grown to taking our highest tribunal for government is more absolute; and, on the granted we never stop to consider it. We other hand, the privileges of the courts of never stop to consider if it might be mended justice are extended with the increasing to our material benefit. liberties of the people; but no European na Concerned above everything else in man tion has yet held that all judicial controver ufacture, agriculture and commerce, it is but sies, without regard to their origin, can be natural that in city, state and national affairs left to the judges of common law. we should keep our fingers close upon the "In America, this theory has been actu machinery that is to make or mar our bankally put in practice; and the Supreme Court accounts. After a municipal, a legislative, or oí the United States is the sole tribunal of a gubernatorial campaign it is slight wonder the nation. Its power extends to all cases that visitors conclude that we do not dally arising under laws and treaties made by the with political ideals. We have been known national authorities, to all cases of Admir t • coerce legislatures and executives, to alty and maritime jurisdiction, and, in gen bring enormous private pressure on state eral, to all points which affect the law of na tribunals; nothing is altogether above sus tions. It may even be affirmed that, al picion save one body, the Supreme Court of though its constitution is essentially judic the land. How does it lift its head serene ial, its prerogatives are almost entirely po above the clouds? Is the Court so far re litical. Its sole object is to enforce the exe moved from every day affairs that business cution of the laws of the Union; and the interests give way to theoretical conceptions Union only regulates the relations of the in that pure ether, or is it that the one august government with the citizens, and of the na bodv is at the same time the desideratum of tion with foreign powers; the relations of