The Founding Fathers intended for the Judicial branch to defend the Constitution. They wrote 85 articles explaining the Constitution to those who opposed it, in an effort to convince them to support it. In Federalist Number 78, they explained, “The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.”
In 1803, A man called Marbury wished to use the Supreme Court to compel James Madison, the secretary of State at that tie, to give Marbury the papers that would allow him to begin his federal job. The Supreme Court ruled that the law stating Marbury could use the Supreme Court to compel Madison was unconstitutional because it was not contained in the constitution. Chief judge John Marshall, a true Founding Father, because he set the standard for defending the constitution, did not believe the Supreme Court had any power that the Constitution did not give it.
In a Forbes article, George Leef says, “The “living Constitution” theory amounts to saying that Supreme Court justices should be allowed to rewrite the foundation of our government as they see fit, sometimes adding ideas that weren’t included, sometimes ignoring ideas that were. mostly, “living Constitution” decisions entail turning a blind eye to the document’s clear limits on governmental power.”
We must follow the Constitution the way the Founding Fathers meant us to. That is the only way we will defeat the seeds of socialism that have been sown into our country. We must change the “living Constitution” into strict constructionism, which is interpreting the Constitution based on the Founding Fathers intentions.