Federalist No. 78

The Federalist Papers were a series of essays initiated by Alexander Hamilton arguing for the ratification of the United States Constitution. The essays were the most significant contribution to the debate over the structure of the new American government. Thomas Jefferson called them "the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written." 

Federalist No. 78 explains the need for an independent judiciary, where courts would ensure that the people's representatives acted only within the authority given to Congress under the Constitution. Other than Marbury v. Madison (1803), Hamilton’s essay remains the most famous defense of judicial review in American history, and it even served as the basis for many of Chief Justice John Marshall’s arguments in Marbury itself. The independent and life-tenured judicial branch is a direct result of the genius of Hamilton’s Federalist No. 78. Some would say it was the last great bulwark against recent moves of the American government towards tyranny.

“Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power. It only supposed that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.”