Whatever useful purposes such illusions might have once served, over the past half century the scholarship on the founders and the blatantly political character of the Supreme Court makes them untenable. To repeat, the American founding, most especially the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, was always a messy moment populated by mere mortals, whose chief task was to fashion a series of artful political compromises. And the Supreme Court had never floated above the American political landscape like a disembodied cloud of heavenly wisdom. It always was a political institution
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