Court or Constitution?

Since 1937, when Franklin D. Roosevelt put forward his proposal to pack the Supreme Court, a constitutional crisis has been slowly building up. Since the desegregation decision of 1954, and a whole series of decisions this year, the crisis has become more serious.

There are three great issues at stake. The first is whether the Constitution is to be amended by the method provided by the Constitution itself, or whether itistobe amended or, rather, eroded, under the guise of “interpretations” by the Supreme Court. The second great issue is whether the traditional balance of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the federal government is to be preserved, or whether the Supreme Court is to be allowed to act, in effect, as a Third Legislative House, which can nullify the intent of Congress or set aside executive rulings which it doesn’t like, but from whose own decisions there can be no appeal or any other recourse. The third great issue is whether the states are to exercise the rights and prerogatives and the extent of self-rule explicitly reserved to them by the Founding Fathers, or whether the states are to become meaningless subdivisions under an all-powerful central government in Washington.

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Henry Hazlitt

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Supreme Court

Constitution

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Separation of Powers

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Since 1937, when Franklin D. Roosevelt put forward his proposal to pack the Supreme Court, a constitutional crisis has been slowly building up. Since the desegregation decision of 1954, and a whole series of decisions this year, the crisis has become more serious.

There are three great issues at stake. The first is whether the Constitution is to be amended by the method provided by the Constitution itself, or whether itistobe amended or, rather, eroded, under the guise of “interpretations” by the Supreme Court. The second great issue is whether the traditional balance of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the federal government is to be preserved, or whether the Supreme Court is to be allowed to act, in effect, as a Third Legislative House, which can nullify the intent of Congress or set aside executive rulings which it doesn’t like, but from whose own decisions there can be no appeal or any other recourse. The third great issue is whether the states are to exercise the rights and prerogatives and the extent of self-rule explicitly reserved to them by the Founding Fathers, or whether the states are to become meaningless subdivisions under an all-powerful central government in Washington.