The Supreme Court as Final Interpreter
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establishing a new government and sailing on uncharted seas, there was a
great deal of constitutional debate in both houses. As time wore on and
more and more issues were settled, the frequency and quality of constitutional debate declined somewhat. Still, the practice continues, as it
must, and the discussion of constitutional issues as reported in the Congressional Record or in the committee reports of Congress can be highly
instructive.
Presidential involvement in constitutional interpretation and debate is
less extensive and frequent than congressional involvement, but not necessarily any less heated. Some Presidents, notably Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt, and more recently Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, have publicly and
vigorously challenged Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution, but no President has refused to enforce one of its decisions. Objecting to a decision of the Marshall Court involving the Cherokee Indians
in Georgia, President Jackson was rumored to have said: ‘‘John Marshall
has made his decision. Let him enforce it.’’ There is no evidence that Jackson ever made that statement, however, or intended not to carry out the
Court’s ruling. Roger B. Taney, Jackson’s Attorney General who later was
appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, explained Jackson’s position in a letter that reflects a proper understanding of the President’s interpretive powers:
He [Jackson] has been charged with asserting that he, as an Executive
Officer, had a right to judge for himself whether an act of Congress was
constitutional or not, and was not bound to carry it into execution if he
believed it to be unconstitutional, even if the Supreme Court decided
otherwise; and this misrepresentation has been kept alive for particular
purposes of personal ill-will, and has, I learn, been repeated in the Senate during its late session. Yet no intelligent man who reads the message
can misunderstand the meaning of the President. He was speaking of
his rights and duty, when acting as a part of the Legislative power, and
not of his right or duty as an Executive officer. For when a bill is presented to him and he is to decide whether, by his approval, it shall become a law or not, his power or duty is as purely Legislative as that of a
member of Congress, when he is called on to vote for or against a bill. If