even laymen soon perceive that interpretation means legislation. It is technically correct to say that the Supreme Court of the United States acts only as interpreter of the Constitution, but we must not be deceived by fictions. The Supreme Court has legislated as truly, and perhaps more effectively than Congress. It has achieved, and from the nature of things was compelled to achieve, a feat forbidden to Congress; it has added to or enlarged the Articles of the Constitution. The good fortune of the United States gave to them in Judge Marshall a profound and statesmanlike lawyer, and the judgments of the great Chief Justice have built up the existing Constitution. He may be counted, if not among its founders, at any rate as its main architect. In this instance judicial authority was combined with political wisdom, and Marshall's opinion was, it is said, rejected by the Court in but two cases, and had it in these instances been followed, would have improved the Constitution. Unfortunately, while one may often secure the fairness one cannot ensure the wisdom of the Bench. Judges err; a final Court of Appeal must often give decisions which are or are supposed to be erroneous, i.e., not a just deduction from the facts and principles which the Court is called upon to consider. No historian will, it is likely, now defend the doctrine of the House of Lords about marriage laid down in _Reg._ v. _Millis_. Competent authorities question some of the most important ecclesiastical judgments given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The decision in the _Dred Scott Case_, whether right or wrong, did not approve itself to eminent lawyers in the United States. One of the decisions of the Supreme Court in the _Legal Tender Cases_ must have been wrong; whether the last was sound is open to debate. It is when a Court gives what is thought to be an erroneous decision on matters exciting the feelings of large classes that the difficulty of obtaining acquiescence in its judgments is palpable. The judges decided, and it is quite possible decided rightly, that Ship Money was a legal exaction, and that the Crown's dispensing power was authorized by law. Popular opinion branded the judges as sycophants and traitors. Chief Justice Taney and his colleagues decided in effect, and from a legal point of view may have been right in deciding, that slavery was recognised by the Constitution of the United States. Their decision was denounced by the best men in the Union as infamous. The Privy Council have laid down doctrines on matters of ritual which are held to be erroneous by a large body of the clergy, and Ritualists have gone to prison rather than treat the judgment of the Privy Council as of moral validity. Clergymen are not perhaps the most reasonable of mankind, but they are not more unreasonable than political enthusiasts. How then is it possible to expect that a Federal tribunal would command an obedience