Role of Judiciary

The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, and both should be checks upon that. John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776.
At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823.
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary;... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821
It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice. Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on Debts Due to Soldiers, 1790.
One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825.
One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Livingston, March 25, 1825.
The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a co-ordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Ritchie, December 25, 1820.
[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, September 11, 1804.
I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the judicial. But I beg to know upon what principle it can be contended that any one department draws from the Constitution greater powers than another in marking out the limits of the powers of the several departments. James Madison, speech in the Congress of the United States, June 17, 1789.
The Constitution... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please. Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819.
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787.
[R]efusing or not refusing to execute a law to stamp it with its final character...makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper. James Madison, letter to John Brown, October, 1788.

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