It might be surprising, then, that its vast power of constitutional judicial review cannot be found in the constitution. Sanford and for opposing trade unions, limits on working hours, and child labour bans in the infamous ‘ Lochner Era’ of the 1880s-1920s.īut through controversy and crisis, the court has remained and has secured for itself a place at the heart of American political life and an indispensable role in the constitutional architecture of the United States. Long before the court won its twentieth-century reputation as a bastion of progressive social values, it was most famous for excluding African Americans from citizenship in the 1857 decision Dred Scott v. Debates about the scope of the Supreme Court’s power, and of the threat to democracy posed by activist judges, have haunted American politics since its founding and have been articulated by both the left and right. This is not an anxiety unique to the present moment. These demands also expose a perennial American anxiety: that the American people are not truly self-governing, and that American democracy must ultimately submit itself to the edicts of a sovereign in judges’ black robes. Other signs, reading ‘Abort the Court’ and ‘We Should Choose Our Own Destinies’, signalled the same demand, that the power to decide the most important questions in American political life should be held by the people.
Among the many banners flying, one bore the legend ‘THE PEOPLE ARE SUPREME’.
Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, which pre-empted the court’s verdict in June to overturn Roe v. In May last year, protestors descended upon the United States Supreme Court in the wake of the leaked draft decision in Dobbs v.
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