In the thread about “judicial negation,” a commentator raised the remarkably resilient myth that judicial review was created or invented in Marbury v. Madison. For those who are interested in the evidence on this question, I offered my article, The Original Meaning of the Judicial Power. Andrew Hyman of ConfirmThem.com agrees, offering Hamilton’s argument from Federalist 78 that the evidence shows was a commonplace view at the founding:
The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents.
Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.
Andrew then makes the following interesting observation:
Of course, the Supreme Court has long since abandoned Hamilton’s test of “irreconcilable variance” in favor of a test resembling “plausible variance.” In other words, it’s not judicial review that’s truly controversial, but rather the manner in which it’s exercised.
While, there is much to be said about this, let me offer the following thoughts. First, though the evidence of this is far more fragmentary than that which establishes the power of judicial nullification, from my reading, judicial deference as exemplified by “Hamilton’s test of ‘irreconcilable variance'” was probably the dominant view. The fact that Jefferson too articulated this view as Secretary of State in the context of the debate over the national bank, which he opposed and Hamilton supported, is evidence that the view was commonly held. Second, while Hamilton’s statement precedes the Constitution, after ratification, this degree of deference corresponded to lengthy and very serious debates in Congress over the extent of its constitutional powers–most notably during the first major constitutional controversy involving the first Bank of the United States. Third, judicial deference seems to have persisted up until the Progressive and Populist movements began to undermine the American commitment to broad liberties of the People and limited legislative powers. Fourth, when judges who had been trained in the previous culture of legislative restraint confronted manifestations of the new “Progressive” and “Populist” philosophies of agressive governmental solutions to “social problems” they resisted by becoming somewhat less deferential. Fifth, this less deferential stance by judges was overcome by the political triumph of Progressivism in the form of the New Deal, and judicial appointments by President Roosevelt, ushering in a period of judicial deference on matters of constitutionality in the face of legislative activism.
One way of framing the issue of judicial deference is to ask: “deference to what?” Many mean “deference to the policy judgment of the legislature.” With that proposition few disagree. But what the debate is also about is deference to the constitutional judgment of Congress that a particular act is within its powers. When Congress was exercising “legislative restraint” by considering itself bound by limited and enumerated powers, its judgment on this question may have merited the deference showed to it by Hamilton, Jefferson, and others as well. But when Congress has abandoned any sense of constitutional limits, then there would seem to be no real judgment of constitutionality to which to defer. In this, Congress has been aided and abetted by the post-New Deal Supreme Court and by law professors who would take judicial power even farther than the New Deal justices actually did.
The next question is whether an originalist is committed to the attitudes of the founders towards judicial restraint, in the face of legislative activism that took 100 years to develop. The answer to this question is worth debating and raises tricky methodological issues. I, for one, do not think we are bound by such an unwritten doctrine. Deference is a prudential doctrine that assumes there is a judgment to which to defer. When that assumption proves false, the doctrine (which is really no where in the Constitution) may be altered. In my book, Restoring the Lost Constitution, I propose adopting a “presumption of liberty” by which the burden is placed on Congress to establish that its laws are truly “necessary and proper”—what it used to debate but no longer. I think experience with the scrutiny given laws governing the freedoms of speech and press strongly suggests that Congress will be more circumspect if courts are less deferential. Paradoxically, this would result in a congressional judgment of constitutionality to which courts could defer. But the New Deal experience teaches where courts give Congress carte blanche, it will push beyond any limits contained in the written Constitution. If this is right, then legislative activism is itself a product of judicial restraint on the issue of congressional power. The result of this judicial abdication is a fundamental alteration of our constitutional order without benefit of constitutional amendment. (Civil comments only please.)