"[16] I might go on into endless detail, but I apprehend
that these cases, which are the most important which have ever arisen on
this issue, suffice for my purpose.[17] I contend that no court can,
because of the nature of its being, effectively check a popular majority
acting through a coordinate legislative assembly, and I submit that the
precedents which I have cited prove this contention. The only result of
an attempt and failure is to bring courts of justice into odium or
contempt, and, in any event, to make them objects of attack by a
dominant social force in order to use them as an instrument, much as
Charles II used Jeffreys.
The moment we consider the situation philosophically we perceive why
using a court to control a coordinate legislature must, nearly
inevitably, be sooner or later fatal to the court, if it asserts its
prerogative. A court to be a fit tribunal to administer the municipal
law impartially, or even relatively impartially, must be a small body of
men, holding by a permanent and secure tenure, guarded from all pressure
which may unduly influence them.
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