Yet, even supposing the synthetic mind of the highest power to be
increasing in proportion to the population, instead of, as I suspect,
pretty rapidly decreasing, and supposing the capitalist to be fully
alive to the need of administrative improvements, a phalanx of
Washingtons would be impotent to raise the administrative level of the
United States materially, as long as the courts remain censors of
legislation; because the province of the censorial court is to dislocate
any comprehensive body of legislation, whose effect would be to change
the social status. That was the fundamental purpose which underlay the
adoption of a written constitution whose object was to keep local
sovereignties intact, especially at the South. Jefferson insisted that
each sovereignty should by means of nullification protect itself. It was
a long step in advance when the nation conquered the prerogative of
asserting its own sovereign power through the Supreme Court. Now the
intervention of the courts in legislation has become, by the change in
environment, as fatal to administration as would have been, in 1800,
the success of nullification.
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