loskey (1994), in his book The American Supreme Court, argues the Court's lack of prestige was due to the fact that, "from 1789 until the Civil War, the dominant interest of the Supreme Court was in that greatest of all questions left unsolved by the founders-the nation-state relationship" (McCloskey, 1994, 17). American society at large perceived the Supreme Court's role as having little direct influence on the nation's social fabric. Instead, the Court was seen as a mediator of the roles of government bodies as well as their relationship to one another. In the few instances when the Supreme Court took center stage in national political debates (as in the case of Dred Scott and the wider issue of slavery) its role was seen as a failure.
Presidents and Congress had to appoint judges to the Supreme Court based on a delicate process of bargaining, the exchange of political favors among Washington insiders, and the desire to balance competing regional interests. Gregory A. Caldeira and John R. Wright (1990), in their article, "Lobbying for Justice: The Rise of Organized Conflict in the Politics of Federal Judgeships," point out that only twenty-one nominees were rejected by the Senate before 1894 (p. 6). This fact seems to support the notion that the Court's increasing importance in the American political arena was not matched by an enhanced prestige or even a perception that the Court would play a larger role in American politics.
The Court's status as a third and unequal branch of government began to change after the Civil War. The government expanded rapidly with increased mandate for regulation, as well as a greater centralization of political power. With these new powers came a clarification of the role (such as judicial review) of the Supreme Court.
The Court's role was slowly transformed in the second half of the nineteenth-century into one of facilitating nationalization of politics and culture (as opposed to...