I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional
questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny
that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties
to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also
entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel
cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is
obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any
given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to
that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and
never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than
could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the
candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government
upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be
irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant
they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal
actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having
to that extent practically resigned their Government into the
hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any
assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they
may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and
it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to
political purposes.
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