Judiciary: Know Thy Place

Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist No.78 that the judiciary "has no influence over ... the purse."' Yet in Missouri v. Jenkins, the Supreme Court approved indirect judicial taxation. Hamilton wrote that the judiciary "will always be the least dangerous" and "beyond comparison the weakest" branch of government. Yet in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court created out of nothing a right to choose abortion, invalidated the abortion laws of all fifty states developed over more than a century, and shut millions of Americans out of the process of developing public policy on this important political issue. Hamilton wrote that the "liberty of the people can never be endangered from [the judicial] quarter." Yet in Employment Division v. Smith," the Supreme Court virtually eliminated the constitutional protection for citizens to freely exercise their religion.