Elza says:
It (along with others) should protect us. But it all rests with USSC. Once something gets the court’s blessing we’re pretty much out of options. Think about some of the things that are being done in the name of Homeland Security. Mention HS and suddenly anything and everything is acceptable.
Our history is full of options exercised by other branches of government and the people to defy USSC decisions.
The state of Georgia refused to release Samuel Worcester from prison contrary to a decision by the USSC (
Worcester v. Georgia) and Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the order.
Abraham Lincoln in his
first inaugural address pointed to a deference, rather than an absolute deferral, to Supreme Court decision noting:
I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit; as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be over-ruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
In other matters Jackson stated his reasoning behind a separation of powers in the Constitution by saying
The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. . . . The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.
Much earlier Jefferson expressed a similar view that
a decision of the Supreme Court, though it bound the parties to the case, did not bind the executive to the rule of law announced in the decision
The Dred Scott case shows that decisions by the court are not necessarily wise, principled or followed since African-Americans are full citizens today and, despite the Court's Plessy v. Ferguson decision, segregation in schools is not legal and, despite the Slaughter-House Cases decision by the Court, we have been extending the Bill of Rights as binding on the states as intended by the Fourteenth Amendment.
These latter case show the effects of more than legal argument in Courts -- rather they show what can be done by the People demonstrating sustained and intense disagreement with Court through popular demonstrations and the elections of President and Congressmen dedicated to opposing Court’s interpretation of Constitution.
It isn't a "smart-a$$ed comment" to point out that the People own their Constitution, not the USSC or the President or Congress. Franklin said our government is a republic if we can keep it. He didn't say it was a republic if the Supreme Court let us keep it. To the question
what is there in the Constitution to prevent a Supreme Court from doing wrong when the Supreme Court claims the power to interpret the Constitution?, the answer is as it has always been:
The will of the People. We hope the best from the Court for they are all in the same boat with us -- but we should always be prepared to fight if necessary to protect the republic.
Fighting may be as simple as "demonstrating sustained and intense disagreement" though the election process or it may mean more. Obviously, it is in our best interest to prevail in the Court, but failing that, by elections.
