Governed by the Supreme Court - Brutus XI

In Brutus XI an Anti-Federalist author turns his attention to the Judicial System of the US Constitution.

Brutus XI

January 31, 1788

In Brutus XI the anonymous Anti-Federalist author turns his attention to the Judicial Branch.

He outlines the powers given to the Judiciary under the Constitution and elaborates on why the Supreme Court is the part of the Federal Government that should most be feared by the States.

Legalese

Brutus begins Essay XI with an admission that he is not the most learned lawyer in the young United States.

He further analyzes that the Constitution’s section about the Judiciary is full of complicated language, the meaning of which even the best lawyers disagree on.

Brutus then accuses proponents of the new Government of using this complicated language as a distraction while making their arguments so they will not have to directly address the questions at hand.

Equity

Brutus focuses a large part of the Paper focusing on the idea of equity.

In his estimation, the Anti-Federalist believed that the Supreme Court was not only able to decide what was legal from the words of the Constitution, but what was legal in the ‘spirit’ of the Constitution.

This, he believed, left a whole lot up to the whims of the Justices.

Accumulating Power

In the natural course of humanity, Brutus thought, people in power always try to accumulate that power. This was not necessarily done in an evil way, even those working with the best of intentions would gradually default to these types of decisions.

Furthermore, the Justices having zero oversight, would allow them to craft the Federal Government to their liking.

Brutus estimated that this would lead to an increase of power to both the Judicial Branch and the Federal Government in general, to the detriment of the State Governments.

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Here is a link to the earlier Essays of Brutus I have covered: