The Court and Constitutional Interpretation
                                               QUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAWîóThese words,
                                     ìE written above the main entrance to the Supreme
 ìThe                                Court Building, express the ultimate responsibility of
                                     the Supreme Court of the United States.  The Court is
                                     the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and
   republic                          controversies arising under the Constitution or the
                                     laws of the United States.  As the final arbiter of the
   endures                           law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American
                                     people the promise of equal justice under law and,
                                     thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of
   and this                          the Constitution.
                                          The Supreme Court is ìdistinctly American in concept
   is the                            and function,î as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes
                                     observed.  Few other courts in the world have the same
   symbol of                         authority of constitutional interpretation and none have
                                     exercised it for as long or with as much influence.  A
                                     century and a half ago, the French political observer
   its faith.î                       Alexis de Tocqueville noted the unique position of the
                                     Supreme Court in the history of nations and of juris-
            óCHIEF JUSTICE           prudence.  ìThe representative system of government
                                     has  been  adopted  in  several  states  of  Europe,î  he  re-
  CHARLES EVANS HUGHES               marked, ìbut I am unaware that any nation of the globe
                                     has hitherto organized a judicial power in the same
    Cornerstone Addressó             manner as the Americans. . . .  A more imposing judicial
                 Supreme Court       power was never constituted by any people.î
                      Building            The unique position of the Supreme Court stems, in
                                     large part, from the deep commitment of the American
                                     people to the Rule of Law and to constitutional govern-
                                     ment.  The United States has demonstrated an un-
                                     precedented determination to preserve and protect its
written Constitution, thereby providing the American ìexperiment in democracyî with the
oldest written Constitution still in force.
     The Constitution of the United States is a carefully balanced document.  It is designed
to provide for a national government sufficiently strong and flexible to meet the needs of
the republic, yet sufficiently limited and just to protect the guaranteed rights of citizens;
it permits a balance between societyís need for order and the individualís right to freedom.
To assure these ends, the Framers of the Constitution created three independent and
coequal branches of government.  That this Constitution has provided continuous demo-
cratic government through the periodic stresses of more than two centuries illustrates the
genius of the American system of government.
     The complex role of the Supreme Court in this system derives from its authority to
invalidate legislation or executive actions which, in the Courtís considered judgment,
conflict with the Constitution.  This power of ìjudicial reviewî has given the Court a crucial
responsibility in assuring individual rights, as well as in maintaining a ìliving Constitu-
tionî whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated new situations.
     While the function of judicial review is not explicitly provided in the Constitution, it
had been anticipated before the adoption of that document.  Prior to 1789, state courts had
already overturned legislative acts which conflicted with state constitutions.  Moreover,
many of the Founding Fathers expected the Supreme Court to assume this role in regard
to the Constitution; Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, for example, had underlined
the importance of judicial review in the Federalist Papers, which urged adoption of the
Constitution.



    Hamilton had written that through the practice of judicial review the Court ensured
that the will of the whole people, as expressed in their Constitution, would be supreme over
the will of a legislature, whose statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the
people.  And Madison had written that constitutional interpretation must be left to the
reasoned judgment of independent judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the
political process.  If every constitutional question were to be decided by public political
bargaining, Madison argued, the Constitution would be reduced to a battleground of com-
peting factions, political passion and partisan spirit.
    Despite this background the Courtís power of judicial review
was not confirmed until 1803, when it was invoked by Chief Justice
John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison.  In this decision, the Chief
Justice asserted that the Supreme Courtís responsibility to over-
turn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of
its sworn duty to uphold the Constitution.  That oath could not be
fulfilled any other way.  ìIt is emphatically the province of the
judicial department to say what the law is,î he declared.
    In retrospect, it is evident that constitutional interpretation
and application were made necessary by the very nature of the
Constitution.  The Founding Fathers had wisely worded that
document in rather general terms leaving it open to future elabora-
tion to meet changing conditions.  As Chief Justice Marshall noted
in McCulloch v. Maryland, a constitution that attempted to detail every aspect of its own
application ìwould partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced
by the human mind. . . .  Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should
be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose
those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.î
    The Constitution limits the Court to dealing with ìCasesî and ìControversies.î  John
Jay, the first Chief Justice, clarified this restraint early in the Courtís history by declining
to advise President George Washington on the constitutional implications of a proposed
foreign policy decision.  The Court does not give advisory opinions; rather, its function is
limited only to deciding specific cases.
    The Justices must exercise considerable discretion in deciding which cases to hear,
since more than 7,000 civil and criminal cases are filed in the Supreme Court each year
from the various state and federal courts.  The Supreme Court also has ìoriginal jurisdic-
tionî in a very small number of cases arising out of disputes between States or between a
State and the Federal Government.
    When the Supreme Court rules on a constitutional issue, that judgment is virtually
final; its decisions can be altered only by the rarely used procedure of constitutional
amendment or by a new ruling of the Court.  However, when the Court interprets a statute,
new legislative action can be taken.
    Chief Justice Marshall expressed the challenge which the Supreme Court faces in
maintaining free government by noting: ìWe must never forget that it is a constitution we
are expounding . . . intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to
the various crises of human affairs.î

   [The foregoing was taken from a booklet prepared by the Supreme Court of the United States,
             and published with funding from the Supreme Court Historical Society.]