by Focus on the Family Issue Analysts
Philosophical Origins and Intents
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote a set of 85 essays known as the Federalist Papers between October 1787 and August 1788. Their purpose? To explain and advocate for the ratification of the newly-proposed U.S. Constitution, drafted during the summer of 1787 at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention. Several of those essays dealt with Article III of the Constitution concerning the powers and duties of the federal judiciary. In Federalist #78, authored by Hamilton, we gain a clear understanding of the Founding Fathers' view on the limits on judicial power:
…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. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated. The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. [Emphasis added.]