Abe Lincoln's Reservations About Judicial Rule
Regarding 'Trump's Dangerous Disregard for the Courts' (Politics & Ideas, March 26): William A. Galston is right when he says that 'checks and balances and the rule of law are the surest institutional protections for liberty.' He quotes Abraham Lincoln on his opposition to the decision in Dred Scott (1857), which he vowed at the time to reverse through legal means.
But Lincoln was referring to a decision from the Supreme Court (established by the Constitution), not a lower court (created by Congress). Nor does Mr. Galston mention Lincoln's concern about government policy on 'vital questions affecting the whole people' being 'irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court . . . the instant they are made.' In such cases 'the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, . . . having practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.' In April 1864, he wrote: 'I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the Constitution.'
More than 10 million aliens were allowed into this country during the Biden years. The president has an Article II duty to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.' Is he supposed to do nothing while a lower court decides whether he must give a hearing to thousands of violent aliens? That, as Lincoln would surely agree, is preposterous.
Robert DiNino
Glastonbury, Conn.
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