Does Chief Justice Roberts hold the founding Fathers views of the U S Constitution and the "guardian" role the Supreme Court holds, or, does he hold the progressive view?

The Supreme Court was set up to be a guardian of the Constitution over the executive branch and congress. The tendency of man was to expand what ever power was placed in their hands. The Supreme Court, through judicial review, can review acts of congress and of the various states to assure compliance to the Constitution. The Supreme Court must have the last word or its very existence is worthless. Alexander Hamilton wrote;" The courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature in order, among other things, to keep the latter (the congress) within the limits assigned to their authority". Hamilton further noted; "The courts must declare the sense of the law, and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGEMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body".

Chief Justice Taney wrote; "It (the Constitution) speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of the framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States. Any other rule of construction would abrogate the judicial character of the Court and make it the mere reflect of the popular opinion or passion of the day".

Robert Yates, an outspoken opponent of the Constitution, is believed to be the author of comments in a New York paper concluding; "The only cause for which they (Supreme Court Justices) can be displaced are conviction of treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors …., thus the power of the judicial will enable them to mold the government into almost any shape they please".

In 1821, Thomas Jefferson wrote; "It has long, however, been my opinion and I have never shrunk from it’s expression…that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of our federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working by gravity of night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all to be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in big things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated".

Historical quotes courtesy of, The Making of America, by W. Cleon Skousen, published in 1985 by The National Center for Constitutional Studies, Washington, D.C...

Quotes from (The Making of America by W. Cleon Skousen, 1985

Tom Steele Prescott Valley, AZ