Benjamin N. Cardozo Quotes
The Constitution overrides a statute, but a statute, if consistent with the Constitution, overrides the law of judges. In this sense, judge-made law is secondary and subordinate to the law that is made by legislators.
Cardozo, Benjamin N. The Nature of the Judicial Process. Yale University Press, 1921, p. 14.
This concept of balance of power and the equal role of the judiciary is actually quite rare. Even in Parliamentary democracies the parliament can override any court interpretation. In England, the upper legislative house, the House of Lords, actually serves as the nation’s highest or supreme court. And these “Law Lords” can override all regular judicial bodies.
Franklin and many Americans believed that the Colonial Legislatures were independent legislative bodies and need not follow the instructions of the Colonial Governors even though they came from the British Government in London. Franklin replied "This is new doctrine to me."" 1st Marquess of Stafford
When asked for his position on abortion, candidate Bush answered:. Nine years later, President Bush proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling on flag desecration.
Marshall did not crate this concept or some its phraseology out of whole cloth. See Rufus King {610245} for a Constitutional Convention basis for the statement.
See John Marshall's later (1803) use of the concept and term "repugnant." {606483}
The Roosevelt administration had stemmed the tide of Hoover’s Great Depression but the nation had not yet recovered. The New Deal measures, most of which would be considered fundamental to good government 50 years later was being constantly thwarted by a Supreme Court with a strong arch conservative majority headed by James McReynolds, a virulent, overt, anti-Semitic racist, who hated FDR—see {616652} and {585241}. The situation was to many like that which existed before the Civil War when the Court rendered the Dred Scott decision that so harmed the nation. Frankfurter, not then a Supreme Court Justice, urged Roosevelt to do something lest the American Public lose all respect for the Court and our Constitutional system and have the nation harmed by not allowing reforms like child labor laws to go through. The court actually ruled by a narrow majority that the government could not pass laws making it illegal for 11 year old children to work in coal mines or factories. FDR attempted to add more justices turning the majority into a majority—“packing the Supreme Court”, but that politically backfired. Some of the reforms never went through while others needed Constitutional Amendments like the end to Prohibition.
In the English system there is no “separation of powers”. Parliament makes the laws and its ministers execute them. The highest judges are members of Parliament (the House of Lords) as well. So Lord Bereford was in the legislature when the statute was debated and passed.
Hatch was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.
Benjamin Nathan Cardozo was an American jurist who served on the New York Court of Appeals and later as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Cardozo is remembered for his significant influence on the development of American common law in the 20th century, in addition to his philosophy and vivid prose style. Cardozo served on the Supreme Court six years, from 1932 until his death in 1938. Many of his landmark decisions were delivered during his eighteen-year tenure on the New York Court of Appeals, the highest court of that state.
