As The Carbuncle Abcesses

The Dred Scott decision is the very foundation of our constitutional system as it exists today. Popular belief and professional opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, Taney, not Marshall, is the Father of the Judicial Power. And itsfoundations were laid not in Marbury v. Madison (1803) but in Dred Scott v.Sandford (1857). Marshall was at most a pretender to the throne, while Taney established a real kingdom. But even Marshall’s pretensions did not extend to the vast domain which Taney actually conquered. In Marbury v. Madison Marshall put forward the comparatively modest claim that in passing upon the right of Mr. Marbury to be Justice of the Peace of the District of Columbia during the next few years, the judges had the right to compare the law of Congress with the Constitution on the question of power of the Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus, and, if they found that the law of Congress was not in accordance with what they believed to be the provisions of the Constitution, to disregard the law of Congress. But in the Dred Scott Case, Taney and his associates undertook, in the language of Mr. Justice Wayne, to settle by judicial decision the peace and harmony of the country.  

Louis Boudin

I am mindful that going through all of the excellent points that are made in the massive book Government By Judiciary would not be feasible and am thinking of cutting to the chase and going after what he, himself, said was the most consequential information in it, that even with the dangerousness of the self-creation by the court of its power to overturn legislation that it didn't really start to become the danger it is now until the most infamous of 19th century decisions, the Dred Scott decision  which went far, far beyond what Marshall and his colleagues had done.   He points out that though, through the terrible Civil War overturned the effects of the Dred Scott case, cementing slavery into place THE IDIOTS OF THE SUPREME COURT BELIEVING, THEREBY, IN 1857 THAT THEY HAD ENSURED THE PEACE AND TRANQUILITY OF THE NATION, the powers that those slave enabling "justices" created for the Court in that case persisted and has grown steadily worse.

This paper, Government By A Few Conservative Men is worth reading as one person's condensation of Boudin's arguments though its extension asserting that William Rehnquist was thinking along the same lines in his claims about the dangers of judicial power were pretty much negated in his actions on the court.  Lip service about judicial restraint by that white supremacist, voter intimidating enemy of one-person-one-vote, each of those votes being counted and made potent in reality is belied by his record.  Not to mention his style on the bench.  But it is worth reading for what it pulls out of the book and some of the points made.  

If anyone would have any preferences in how I should proceed I will take that into account.  The best thing, of course, would be for you to read the book but it's not easy to find and even less easy to get through, the evidence presented is as massive as it is strong.

I will note that one solution to the problem of the run amok Supreme Court we have now is to stop allowing a mere majority short of a unanimous court to negate duly made laws, leaving it to the far more reliable remedy of the Voters taking care of legislative excesses.  As anyone can see we went from the modesty of the Marbury decision through the Dred Scott one - proof that the wise men of the court can be stunningly stupid as they tat together a string of words to justify them doing what they want to - to today when an emboldened Supreme Court will even overturn elections on a partisan basis, with "justices" such as Sandra Day O'Connor joining Rehnquist and others of her party for a Republican who lost the popular election explicitly so that he will replace her instead of a Democrat.   She, of course, suffered nothing as the Supreme Court members never are on their on the basis of total impunity.  

Addressing these are dangers is something that we can't put off eternally because, like in 1857, the issues involved are coming to all kinds of heads and the carbuncle is dangerously abscessed right now.