The Final Arbiter of the Constitution

[Keith Broaders]

Contrary to what you've been taught the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of what is Constitutional and what is not. When in 1850 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Fugitive Slave Law was Constitutional the Supreme Court Justices wrong. 

Many of the legislatures of the Northern States passed personal liberty laws which nullified the Fugitive Slave Law. This act of defiance illustrates that the states have a right to overturn Supreme Court decisions.

When John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts which violated the First Amendment James Madison and Thomas Jefferson issued the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. They promoted the idea that the states and the people were the final arbiters of what is and what is not Constitutional.

The text of the Constitution does not contain a specific provision for the power of judicial review. Rather, the power to declare laws unconstitutional has been deemed an implied power, derived from Article III and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution