Legislative Overreach Quotes
These laws promulgated during the Adams administration were hated by Jefferson. When he assumed the Presidency he pardoned all who had been convicted under that law.
Marshall is famous for, as Chief Justice, establishing the principle that the Judiciary can override Congress and the Executive in determining Constitutionality. However, as this quotation illustrates this principle had been discussed in open debate on the ratification of the Constitution. It was not simply a grab for power by a Chief justice; he uttered this quotation long before he ever suspected he would be a judge but actually spent much of his career in the executive and legislative branch of government.
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.
Suggestions of prohibition of alcohol have been made for a long time in America. It was tried for a few years in he early 20th century. Instead, alcohol is regulated in most parts of America.
He was referring to a transportation bill that had been packed with earmarks and pork by his own party.
