Judicial Branch

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the changes that have occurred in the judicial branch of the American government over the decades. It argues that under Chief Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court further established its powers using the ultimate power of the U.S. Constitution. It shows that by striving to interpret the Constitution in a broader sense, Marshall strengthened and used judicial review in his landmark cases and, most importantly, created the powerful third branch of the government that the United States maintains to this day.

From the Paper:

"Today, the United States judicial branch has become equally powerful as the executive and the legislative branches of the American government. Still, according to Charles Hoffer, today the people of the United States "take for granted the tremendous power of the Supreme Court to interpret our laws and overrule any conflict found in the Constitution," (Hoffer 3). In order to achieve the judiciary power the United States holds today, one man in particular, Chief Justice John Marshall, interpreted the Constitution in his particular manner constructing monumental decisions in a series of court cases that centralized around the concept of judicial review. Through these landmark cases, Marshall established a body of property rights that provided "a constitutional foundation for the subsequent economic growth of the United States," (Blum 206). Armed with judicial review, Marshall elevated the power of the judiciary by establishing the Supreme Court as the law of the land and as the final interpreter of the Constitution while he fought as an advocate to "free business from the restraints of state and local governments, to enhance the federal role in interstate commerce, and to thereby help construct an open, vital, national economy," (Greenberg 65)."

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