Just and Holy Principles

Founders:

John Adams: [J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men. (Adams, John Thoughts on Government, 1776)

John Adams: The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, and both should be checks upon that. (Adams, John Thoughts on Government ,1776)

Alexander Hamilton: Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive, that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. (Hamilton, Alexander Federalist No. 78, 1788)

Thomas Jefferson: The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constituion of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to Charles Hammond, Aug 18, 1821)

Thomas Jefferson: At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account. (Jefferson, Thomas letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823)

Joseph Story: Without justice being freely, fully, and impartially administered, neither our persons, nor our rights, nor our property, can be protected. And if these, or either of them, are regulated by no certain laws, and are subject to no certain principles, and are held by no certain tenure, and are redressed, when violated, by no certain remedies, society fails of all its value; and men may as well return to a state of savage and barbarous independence. (Story, Joseph Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Brethren:

Rex E. Lee: It means that five people--a majority of the Supreme Court--have the power not only to interpret the Constitution, but also effectively to amend it if they choose to do so, with little effective power for Congress, the president, or the people to reverse what the Court does in any particular case.

As large and as real as that concern is, it needs to be tempered by two facts. The first is that it is fairly clear to me that this power of judicial review--the authority of the courts to have the last word on constitutionality--was intended by the 1787 framers, though they did not explicitly say so. By combining the power of judicial review (which, as Hamilton says, they probably did intend) with the very broad language that the Founding Fathers used in the Constitution's most important provisions, the expansive judicial power that comes from judicial review was, in a sense, part of the "original intent" of the 1787 framers.

Second, there is, over the long run, a responsiveness between the will of the people and the content of our constitutional law. This comes about through the power of the president to appoint members of the federal judiciary. Indeed, as every recent president since Eisenhower has explicitly observed, one of the most important acts of any president--some have said the most important--is to appoint members of the Supreme Court, whose average tenure has been several times that of our presidents.

Therefore, over the decades of your future careers as voting Americans, just remember that when you vote for a president, you are doing more than picking the person who will lead us in war and peace and have access to Camp David and Air Force One. You are also in effect making a decision as to what kind of person you want on the Supreme Court. (Rex E. Lee, former President of BYU, "The Restoration and the Constitution," Jan. 15, 1991)

References:

→  Rex E. Lee, "The Constitution and the Restoration," Jan. 15, 1991