Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/137

Rh cially deciding the questions alluded to, especially as the power given by the Constitution to the President, of calling on the heads of departments for opinions, seems to have been purposely as well as expressly united to the Executive departments. We exceedingly regret every event that may cause embarrassment to your Administration, but we derive consolation from the r^ection that your judgment will discem what is right, and that your usual prudence, decision and firmness will surmount every obstacle to the preserva- tion of the rights, peace, and dignity of the United States. By the firm stand thus taken at so early a stage in the career of the new Government, and by declining to express an opinion except in a case duly litigated before it, the Court established itself as a purely judicial body; and its success in fulfilling its function has followed its adhering to this exclusive method of deciding questions of law and of constitutionality of statutes. "The process is slower, but freer from suspicion of pressure and much less provocative of jealousy, than the submission of broad and emergent political propositions to a judicial body."1 As De Tocqueville said, the American Judge "is brought into the political arena independently of his own will ; he only judges the law because be is obliged to judge a case; the political question which he is called upon to resolve is connected with the interest of the parties and he cannot refuse to decide it without abdicating the duties of his post.** Consequently, the decisions of the Court on questions involving matters which have become the subjects of political controversy are much less likely to arouse suspicion and distrust than if the Court exercised the power to decide such questions without litigation and argument by parties having a direct in- terest in the result of the decision.

1 Popular Oovemment (1885), by Sir Henry Maine, 223; Democracy in America (1885)» by Alexis de Tocqueville, 1, 143 ; The American Judiciary {1905), by Simeon