Supreme Court Pros And Cons

When talking about the U.S. Supreme Court, the primary focus is on main cases that have shaped our country. Some of the cases that the Supreme Court has ruled on have been very controversial. Two questions that should be thought about when analyzing the bounds of how far the Supreme Court should make rulings are; should the U.S. Supreme Court issue rulings that unduly influence American values and traditions and where is the “dividing line” between interpreting the constitutionality of a particular issue and changing cultural mores?
Two types of behaviors that are practiced by the Supreme Court are judicial restraint and judicial activism. Judicial restraint is the “idea that the Supreme Court should defer to the actions of other branches

That case is Marbury v. Madison. Marbury v. Madison arose out of great tensions that surrounded the election of 1800. The Federalist had lost soundly at both the national and state level. The lame-duck Federalist passed the Judiciary Act of 1801 creating sixteen new federal judgeships with lifetime tenure as well as additional legislation that created forty-two justices of the peace with fixed terms in the District of Columbia. One of the justices of the peace was William Marbury. The responsibility for delivering the commission for the new judgeships belonged to the Secretary of State, John Marshall, but Marshall did not have adequate time to deliver them before the new president, Thomas Jefferson, was sworn in. He left the job to his successor, James Madison, to deliver the remaining commissions. When Jefferson took office, he forbade Madison from delivering the commissions. Marbury brought his suit to the Supreme Court under original jurisdiction. He asked the court to issue a writ of mandamus, an order to perform an official duty, commanding the delivery of his commission. The court was made up of six Federalists, with John Marshall as the chief justice. There was a partisan power

During this time, the Supreme Court was in an interesting position. The now Democratic-Republican Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801, abolishing the federal judgeships. The year of 1802 was a dead period for the court, so nothing could be carried out in court. After the dead period, Madison did not even send a lawyer when Marbury v. Madison was being argued. Marshall became worried that any ruling would undermine the power and legitimacy of the Supreme Court. If they issued a writ of mandamus, Secretary Madison could simply ignore it and the weakness of the court would be revealed. If the court did not issue a writ of mandamus, then the citizens would assume it had caved to the pressure, also weakening the