The Supreme Court . Law, Power & Personality . Supreme Inspiration

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	Where do the Supreme Court justices seek instruction and insight when preparing their decisions? We expect them to ground their arguments in legal precedent. Naturally, the Constitution serves as their guide, as do the Federalist Papers and the writings and sayings of the Founding Fathers: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin.








	Observations of foreign visitors such as the much-quoted Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville offer an outside-looking-in perspective, while the writings of 17th-century British philosopher John Locke explore the rights of the individual and the social contract. Here, we examine some of the more fanciful muses of the justices. Works ranging from the satirical plays of Aristophanes to Lord Byron's "Don Juan" to the futuristic ruminations of George Orwell's 1984, offer a peek into the mind and personality of the Court, from its inception in 1790 to the present day. -- by Christine McKenna INSTRUCTIONS: Click on a category to read how the justices use the texts when writing their decisions and dissents.


		"How can my muse want subject to invent, While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse Thine own sweet argument, too excellent For every vulgar paper to rehearse?" — Shakespeare, Sonnet 38 "To sum up the matter, the principle that no man is to be declared guilty on his own admission is a divine decree." — Book of Judges, The Bible "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence." — "Mending Wall," Robert Frost "What is honored in a country will be cultivated there." THE REPUBLIC, Plato "It is by the goodness of God that, in our country, we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them." — Mark Twain "All men recognize the right of revolution: that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable." — AN ESSAY ON CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, H. D. Thoreau "But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed." — THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE, Shakespeare "He is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention." — THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, Adam Smith