Tomorrow through the Past

[womzilla]

I heard about this on the NPR headlines yesterday:

Appeals court rules against Ashcroft in 9/11 case

A federal appeals court has ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be sued by people who claim they were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11, and called the government practice "repugnant to the Constitution."

And I thought, "wow, that's a particularly strong and colorful term of condemnation. And so totally fitting."

Turns out it's classic JamesJohn Marshall, from probably the single most important court case in US history, Marbury v Madison:

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

It's like these pesky Founding Fathers actually had some idea of what a system of laws actually meant. How 'bout that?

Comments

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

Minor quibble: *John* Marshall. Otherwise I agree.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

These days, I'm lucky I didn't say "Josh Marshall".