But by 1823, Thomas Jefferson penned the following, “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.”
The reason Jefferson made this statement, and the reason he spent the last 23 years of his life at war with the Supreme Court [SCOTUS], was because the Supreme Court spent the first 40 years of its existence trampling the sovereignty of the states, while giving power to the federal government not granted to it in the Constitution. SCOTUS also was busy granting itself power; claiming a role for itself never granted by the Constitution – namely, the final arbiter of all constitutional questions.
A quick review of numerous cases show that our assertion here is historically correct.
The very first case c ...