Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton was one of the authors of The Federalist Papers and set the groundwork for the way the court system would be shaped by the U.S. Constitution. It was in Federalist Paper No. 78 that Hamilton formulated the justification for judicial review. Hamilton endorsed the idea of judicial review and offered a foundation for its acceptance.

In No. 78, Hamilton first discussed the issue of the mode of appointing judges, then the tenure by which they would serve in office, and then the division of the judiciary authority between the different courts to be created. Earlier, the writers of The Federalist Papers had considered the need for there to be three branches of government as part of a scheme of checks and balances, and each branch was to operate somewhat autonomously while at the same time serving as a check on the power of the other two branches. The overriding intent of the Framers was balance, to balance the rights of different groups, to balance the powers of the different branches of government, to balance the power of the states against the power of the federal government. The aristocratic Federalists believed that an elite was better suited to administer government and dispense justice, but justice was always seen as a matter of balancing the inherent rights of the individual as expressed by Locke and Rousseau, among others, and the requirements of society under the social contract. The concept of justice that drove the Framers made it necessary th

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discriminated against in the past and because free competition was for white males and generally not open to white females or any minority group members in the same degree. A balance has to be struck and has been many times in the law, as when the law was turned to correcting past discrimination and providing the means for fuller participation even if this meant reducing free competition. This might seem to give the judiciary considerable power, equal to the power of the other two branches, but Hamilton begins with the proposition that the judiciary is the weakest of the three branches of government: Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them (Rossiter 465). The legislature commands the purse and also makes the rules by which the citizenry is regulated. The executive dispenses honors and protects the community. The judiciary, on the other hand, has no influence over the military or the money functions of the government. It exercise

Category: Philosophy - A