Supreme Court rejects fringe elections theory

[The Magistrate]

23. We Place Different Weights On The Political Factors, Ma'am

Marshall concocted a superb gambit. Saying Marbury should get the office, while saying his court could not order it, provided a squid's ink of even-handedness to the self-proclaimed power to nullify laws, asserted by a panel of judges openly opposed to the incoming administration. It has an odd echo to the present day, from certain angles.

People may have praised this judicial power at the Constitutional convention, but they did not write it down. They were fully capable of doing so. There's a theological ring to saying this or that is implied somehow when it is not actually stated.

Again, I do not disagree, as a practical matter, with the ability of a court to rule a law void owing to conflict with the nation's fundamental law. But it does not do so by right, but rather by lawless seizure, and that for shabby and reactionary ends at its foundation. That the practice continues in existence owes to a species of adverse possession, because every side of any political battle finds it useful.