Tom Wimsatt

Mount Airy, Md 21771-7490

The Gazette

218 Main Street

Mount Airy, Md.  21771

Dear Gazette,

Mr. Clayton in the September 8 issue of the Gazette may be amused by my Letter to the Editor claiming that “it is not the job of the U.S. Supreme court to strike down laws that the justices consider unconstitutional” but I wonder if he would be amused by James Madison when he said:  “Refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character...makes the judiciary department paramount in fact to the legislature, which was never intended and can never be proper.”  Mr. Clayton sites Marbury v. [James] Madison in 1803 to prove me wrong in my claim.  While it is true that the Supreme Court declared a law unconstitutional and decided against Madison, it was ignored by the legislative and executive branches. 

President Thomas Jefferson stated:  “Nothing in the Constitution has given to them a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide for them...[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional, and what not...for the legislature and the executive...would make the judiciary a despotic branch.”  How true Jefferson’s words are!

Senator William Giles of Virginia (1804 - 1815) said:  “If the Judges of the Supreme Court should dare...to declare the acts of Congress unconstitutional...it was the undoubted right of the House to impeach them, and of the Senate to remove them.”  To quote a famous radio personality “and now you know the rest of the story.”