ABSTRACT
The figure of a Court on trial must not be carried too far. There are differences of vast significance among the many crises which have dogged the Supreme Court. The first forty years of the Supreme Court's existence, roughly until 1830, was a period of fixing the character of the federal Union. Caution must also rule in interpreting attack on the Supreme Court during the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War. The assertion that the Court from time to time goes on trial seems inappropriate to many people because the complaint against the judges is filed by a limited part of the nation and not by the whole of it. This account of the experience of the tribunal invites one to conclude that it has thus far been victorious in its long war with the elective branches of government and other opponents of judicial power.
