<Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy . Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so . They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps...Their power (is) the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control . The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots . It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy . Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so . They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps...Their power (is) the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control . The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots . It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <P> In 1861, Abraham Lincoln touched upon the same subject, during his first inaugural address: </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> (T) he candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal . Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges . It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> </Table>

The supreme court justices gained the power of judicial review in article iii of the constitution