The Supreme Court

After enjoying a two part video in class referring to the Supreme Court of the United States, I feel that I now understand the significant role that it plays for our nation. The massive marble structure located in the nations capital represents the power the law and court have on society.

Influential decisions have been made between these doors since the beginning of U.S. history starting with Marbury v. Madison in 1803. The birth of Judicial Review was established in this case giving the Supreme Court the power to review all actions of the government and deem them constitutional or unconstitutional. In additional, many precedents were set by Chief Justice John Marshall. In the case he stated "It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is." In the later case Mcculloch v. Maryland of 1819, he stated "Never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding."

In a later segment of the video recent justices discuss the significance of interpreting a document that was written over 200 years ago. Justice Kennedy brings up the point that its more of an advantage of following it than a disadvantage. He believes that since there was many cases between 1789 and present day, they can look back on those case ruling to help come to a decision. This is in fact something that we have learned in class, the term stare decisis. And because of these previous decisions, Justice Scalia believes that the Constitution hasn't become more clear then its original meaning. But Justice Ginsburg bring up the valid point that we don't have the original Constitution that was ratified in 1789, we have the post-Civil War Constitution that includes amendments such as the 14th and the 19th amendments.

The Supreme Court is the most powerful Judicial Branch in the entire world. And in order to maintain that, the Justices must continue with what they have been doing for the past 200 years, interpret the Constitution how our founding father meant it, and make changes when they feel change is absolutely necessary.