They're meant to sit in isolation to examine laws that have been passed or actions of the executive and to give their opinion about whether it is in resonance with the principles of the Constitution and the provisions of the Bill of Rights or whether it so deviates from our constitutional law that it is probably unconstitutional that branch should Far and Away be the weakest in my time there were 6 members of the Supreme Court in your time 9 there is no principle of a republican form of government that would enable 9 unelected unaccountable and unimpeachable beings to have as much power as your current president says they have it is not a great privilege to name a Supreme Court justice it's one of many many many things that a president does and it should be well below the top 10 or even top $100.00 but you do acknowledge that it is an important choice or yes I chose 3 justices of the Supreme Court and more than 20 judges and justices in our federal system and I did what I could to provide geographic representation from all of the country and to make sure I chose people who had a a view of our republic that squared reasonably with my own. But I didn't regarded as the the seat of action I regarded as a very distant cousin of the 2 main branches of our national government principally the legislative and secondly the executive and so how the Supreme Court is has gained as much authority and central of the as it hasn't in your time is mystifying to me but I can tell you this it's not good for people to be dependent upon 9 unelected and unaccountable beings I believe I understand your position Mr Jefferson that were you alive today what would you do to curb the power of the judicial branch Well a part of this I'm afraid is this settled by my cousin John Marshall that gloomy malignity he was named by Adams to be the chief justice of the Supreme Court during the the last hours of the Adams administration he went on to serve for 34 years and he saw Twista Fayyad his opinions as to make us a much more centralized national system than we had intended than the founding fathers had intended in Philadelphia and by the time it was done so much was now settled that it would be very hard to restore the primacy of individual states and to lower the tone of the Supreme Court I see the Supreme Court as as the court of highest appeal but also a group of advisors who say this seems constitutional we're not so sure about this we invite the legislature to take another look at it Mr President I'm sorry but you cleft me a bit gloomy as a says in today if it sounds as if we're doomed once you name a Supreme Court justice and confirm him he serves for a life that can be 40 or even 50 years in your time that's that's 2 generations that's absolutely a violation of Republican theory thank you very much Mr Jefferson You're most welcome sir. Support comes from the last buffalo of Texas featuring high plains adventures and a lodge which can be reserved for events more information at the last buffalo dot com On this week's On the Media protect your source is an unshakable canon of journalism but for one reporter the misdeeds of her source outweighed the code and she outed him to the f.b.i. The person was doing significant damage to innocent people and I wasn't willing to sit there and watch that continue to happen on this week's. Sunday evening at 6 Central. To the Thomas Jefferson. Weekly conversation with President Thomas Jefferson Mr Jefferson as portrayed by the award winning humanities scholar and author. Cross for me. Good day to you. Was a pleasant Mr Jefferson but I have a serious subject to discuss with you this week what might that be sir something I know you have strong opinions about and that is the Supreme Court well I was a victim of the Supreme Court. In the last hours of his discredited one term administration. John Adams pact our federal judicial system with men who are sworn enemies to me and to my vision of this country these are known historically as the midnight appointments some of them were so rushed that the actual physical documents were not put into the hands of the intended recipient some of them were still left on the desk of the secretary of state at the time that Adams the parted from Washington d.c. I felt that as a one term president having been retired to private life by the American people that Adams should do nothing after the election results were clear to hamstring the work of his successor it seemed to me wrong that he would pack the courts with high Federalists and men who despised me just to prevent me from in acting the legislative program which I had expressed to the American people elections matter Adams had one view of this country I had a different view of this country it was an Honest Contest Americans understood the difference he wanted more government I less I believe in states' rights he believes in greater federal authority I trust him and to govern themselves he's more skeptical etc He tells towards England I tell towards France we could go on and on the country knew the difference and in the election of $800.00 they chose me and retired him they spoke their will had been spoken it would be one thing for him to fill the courts with people who were neutral. But instead he filled them with people who are my sworn enemies trying to forestall what I call the 2nd American Revolution and so I was deeply. Disappointed in his behavior and John Marshall the man he named as the chief justice of the Supreme Court in the last year of his presidency went on to serve for 34 years sir and became one of the. The most important high federalists in the history of the Supreme Court he he if actively transformed the interpretation of our Constitution and made it much more national powerful centralized and capitalist than it would have been in the hands of somebody of a more neutral. Political persuasion so I was appalled by this and when I later had an exchange with Abigail Adams about the death of my daughter Maria we drifted into some political topics and I said one thing and one thing only. And your husband's behavior offended me and that was the midnight appointments when it was very clear that the American people wanted to move in in a different direction Mr Jefferson I was going to start our conversation by asking you what your general attitude towards is 3rd branch of government was but I believe you've made that quite clear in your opening statements are well I believe in legislative supremacy so in the state of nature each one of us governs some self when we create a social compact we provide mechanisms to distil the will of the people if the will of the people is to wear blue uniforms and not orange and we elect somebody to be our president our representative we expect him to try to bring about the result that we agree upon we believe in majority rule if possible we want consensus and if we want blue uniforms on the president things we should have orange ones or red ones instead he's not representing us that's the theory of democracy that instead of governing ourselves in pure democracy we create representative republic and democracy and the people that we choose our elected and they fulfill what they take to be the will of the people that means that the the branch of the federal government that's most important is the legislative branch because it's the one that that listens to the people and tries to gather their views and then distill them into enlightened law the courts are a distant 3rd cousin they don't create law they're not elected by the people they don't stand for reelection from time to time they serve for life. And that means that they're too detached from the dynamics of our society to represent that society faithfully we should never put power into the hands of people that are independent of the will of the nation and so I'm against life tenure I'm against politicizing and aggrandizing the judicial branch it should be the very quiet humble meek and diffident 3rd cousin of the other 2 branches and the one that matters most in a free society is a legislative branch where debate can occur where the people can contact their legislators where they can punish a rogue legislator by retiring him at the next election if somebody doesn't represent me well then at the next election I vote for somebody else I vote to retire him that's the principle of majority rule but if I name somebody to the Supreme Court and he serves for 50 years if he does things that are not only not representative of my will but are at tag on a stick to the very ideas of American constitutional democracy we have no recourse he can't be disallowed that he serves for life on good behavior and I can ask all of your listeners to turn to their history books there has never once been a successful impeachment and conviction of a Supreme Court justice of the United States they have life tenure and they serve far longer than would be healthy in any free society Mr Jefferson I understand that you naturally you were irritated by the Supreme Court the midnight appointments I must say sir it's rare that I see you quite this agitated because I believe in democracy now it's a republic rather than an Athenian style democracy but I believe in the will of the people and the people have a right. To govern themselves according to their best lights they will sometimes go wrong they will sometimes be a liberal they will sometimes be swept away by women or for that a system or a national or international emergency of course but the response to that should not be to take government away from them their response should be to train them through public education so they make better choices and weigh evidence more carefully and seek for enlightenment we can't have a group of referees who stand outside of the process and tell us who we are and what we really want and explain to us why what we did in our legislative bodies doesn't suit them and therefore they veto it by judicial review you know if you look at your constitution sir and read it with all the care that you possibly can you cannot point to any clause in that constitution which sets up the principle of judicial review and other words there is nothing that the founders of the Constitution put into the Constitution itself or mentioned in the Federalist Papers that would enable the judicial branch of government to sit in isolation and strike down legislation duly passed by the House of Representatives by the Senate of the United States and signed by the sitting president there is no such mention no such clause no such principle in the Constitution that notion of judicial veto or judicial review was imposed upon the Constitution in Marbury v Madison in 1803 by my cousin John Marshall and that was an effective constitutional one to that change the very nature of our constitutional society without a plebiscite without a referendum without an amendment as I said Mr Jefferson it's rare to see you still agitated about a specific issue. If we could you have this unique viewpoint sir of being there when the government was formed and is following through to my time and I'm wondering if you could take yourself out of the equation and look at this what would you define the proper function of the Supreme Court to be well it is the court of highest appeal so there has to be a final arbiter if Kentucky and Virginia get into a dispute they don't go to war with each other under our system they file lawsuits in the federal court system and if that percolates all the way up to the final arbiter of the to the Supreme Court that court then adjudicates and says Kentucky is right and Virginia is wrong or the verse or they're both right or both wrong we need a final umpire I certainly accept that if you read the Constitution the courts have the Supreme Court at least has some powers of original jurisdiction involving foreign countries and certain commercial things and so on and so the founding fathers wrote in a certain level of original jurisdiction other words cases that can start at the Supreme Court so that's a constitutional power that the Founding Fathers discussed and they gave to the Supreme Court of the United States they did not give the power of judicial veto to the courts now just I wasn't there I wasn't in Philadelphia so I can't speak authoritatively about what they intended but I think they wanted the courts to have a strong advisory role so let's say that the Federalist government under John Adams passes the sedition law which it did in $79081.00 would hope that the Supreme Court would look at that law which basically made it a crime to criticize the Adams administration. You would hope that the Supreme Court would look at that and say in our opinion that the law the sedition law violates the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States we think that you cannot have a 1st Amendment and blithely pass a sedition law which effectively censors free speech therefore we the members of the Supreme Court strongly urge the legislature to revisit those laws and to think better and to to try harder to make sure that they that they accord and resonate with the fundamental laws of the Constitution that should be their role a strong even stern advisory role but not an actual veto over legislation duly passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the chief executive the president of the United States that would be my preferred approach understood Mr Jefferson but. I am a bit confused done on who gets the final word the people the people sir get the final word because we are sovereign and Risso was in some sense correct when he said the people are always right even when they're wrong Mr President we need to take a short break from this conversation when we return I'd like to delve into that question a bit farther and who speaks finally for the people thank you sir. We'll be back in just a moment you're listening to the Thomas Jefferson No. Support comes from awaits him as Cafe and Bar downtown Amarillo for 26 years offering fine dining Tuesday through Saturday and catering for any size event O.H.M.'s Cafe dot com. If you live in the high plains then High Plains Public Radio is your source for regional news and programming stories about this part of the world that really matter do you enjoy listening to this station Public Radio replies some listeners like you for support become a member to keep this valuable service alive on the high plains call 180677444 during business hours or good h.p.r. Dot org and hit donate now. Welcome back to the Thomas Jefferson our your weekly conversation with President Thomas Jefferson Welcome back Mr Jefferson thank you so this is when we took our break Mr President I was asking you of the home finally speaks for the people in it now it would seem that our Supreme Court is is is become the final word on issues like. Voting rights immigration personal freedoms isn't the Supreme Court supposed to make those decisions no and it's unseemly and if you think about it rationally for a moment let's take something that's of great national importance the status of the 2nd Amendment under what circumstances do the people have the right to keep and bear arms as you know there's an enormous divisive sometimes angry debate in the United States in your time about the split your for that right on down force and I and my point is though that it wasn't a big issue in my time but it is a gigantic one in your time so how do we settle this. You need a national conversation you need to have town meetings as they do in New England you need to gather people together legislative bodies in every state and territory need to debate this there need to be newspaper wars and and debates I understand that Mr President but help me if I'm wrong and if I'm looking at this too simplistically but we can have all the conversations we want but if that law is challenged and goes before the Supreme Court they decide and how have we empowered 9 unelected people to make a decision of that magnitude for more than 330000000 Americans under what principle of the Constitution to those 9 individuals have the right to make decisions that involve a 3rd of a 1000000000 people do they know more than you do about guns do they know more than you do about crime do they know more than you do about the Constitution and the original intent of the founding fathers yes yes yes Mr President I understand your point your point and its well made but that doesn't change the fact of where we are today the Supreme Court gets the final never have happened and you can change it but it did happen if you did have some to terms with the 2nd Amendment then there is the remedy is to have a an amendment or a new constitution and fight it out gather together $55.00 or $550.00 people. Carefully chosen from amongst the population of the United States put them into a room and say we want you to wrestle with the use of guns in a free society and according to natural law a natural right and we want you to come out with a solution that fits your time and your place a Supreme Court justice may be prejudiced you may be a gun lover he may be a gun hater he may believe that guns are one of the bulwarks of human liberty or he may think that there are a source of enormous public. Violence in corrosion he may be somebody who loves this country he may secretly not love this country he may be well educated in constitutional terms he may be badly educated he may have good mornings and he may have bad mornings he may have had a fight with his son and he comes into the court and makes a decision that's going to affect the lives of a 3rd of a 1000000000 people we can't trust that much fundamental law and that much basic principle of our system to somebody who is that accidental and that unaccountable and we don't you know you posit this one posits us all we need these these people to sit in in isolation and make these determinations but you're pretending that they're creatures out of Plato's Republic but they're not they're men like other men they have the strengths and weaknesses of other men they have the susceptibilities in the in the seductive abilities in the temptations of other men we mustn't regard them as demi gods they are human beings and they are no more able to make these decisions for you than they are for themselves you may consider me a naive citizen when I and make this statement but I know that you are opposed to lifetime appointments on the other hand I choose to believe as you do in the goodness of people that when they're put in that position they're going to make the right choices I believe in the goodness of man until he has power. And the minute he has power I no longer believe in that and I want to change him by process and principle and constitutional fi at so that he can't do dangerous things that's number one I believe in the goodness of humanity but the minute somebody has power including myself that person is no longer to be entirely trusted that's the most important of the points that I wish to make Secondly we need to believe that every Supreme Court justice has a deep commitment to natural law to human liberty to the Rights of Man to the Bill of Rights but if you study the history of the court and look at all the justices who have served since the time of George Washington and tell your own time you will come up with what John Adams would call a mixed bag some outstanding jurists some people of great brilliance but corrupt principals like Mr Hamilton would be and then others who are mediocrities and non-entities humans bring different levels of focus of principle and of purity to the things that they do and you cannot trust somebody over a 20 or 30 or 40 year period to maintain an absolutely strict commitment to civil rights and natural law it just doesn't usually happen and if you don't believe me study the history of the Supreme Court of t