Judicial Review Quotes
In 1832 the Supreme Court held that the state of Georgia could not remove Creek and Cherokee Indians from lands that had been guaranteed to them by a federal treaty. The president disagreed with the court, then headed by John Marshall:. Marshall could not do so without the executive. The Indians were illegally removed to Western lands.
In a 1949 dissenting opinion in Terminiello v. Chicago Jackson claimed the majority view would “convert the Bill of Rights into a suicide pact.”
In addition to being a great writer, Kafka was a legal scholar and attorney who had earned a Juris Doctor degree.
This quotation is a great example of the difficulty of deciding some of the major Constitutional issues. Most reasonable people believe that Rehnquist certainly has a point. On the other hand, critics observe that this quotation essentially says that it is OK to convict an innocent person if it cost too much or be too much trouble to do so. Reasonable people would also agree that this objection has much merit also. So the judicial system is stuck with deciding when the cost or trouble is too much. There will never, can never, be a clear cut answer.
Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims. This quotation, in the 17th century outraged almost every cleric. This is one of the strongest and unequivocal statements about the desirability of separation of church and state. Interestingly, as early as this statement was, Spinoza believed that harm extended to both religion and government.
Actually Adams had used the phrase in 1774 writing in the Massachusetts Gazette under the pseudonym Novanglus. See James Harrington related quotes for an earlier similar expression for which Adams is sometimes credited.
Jefferson, like most Presidents and ex-presidents, had his concerns about the judiciary and judicial checks, especially of the Executive Branch.
