We consider this decision utterly unsound on the facts; contrary to the clear intent of the Fourteenth Amendment; a usurpation of legislative function through judicial process; and an invasion of the reserved rights of States. We further consider that, _putting aside the question of segregation_, this decision presents a clear and present danger to our system of constitutional government, because it places what the court calls “modern authority” in sociology and psychology above the ancient authority of the law, and because it places the transitory views of the Supreme Court above the legislative power of Congress, the settled construction of the Constitution, and the reserved sovereignty of the several States. [Emphasis supplied.] If the student of American government can do as the Sibley commission suggests, and put aside the question of segregation--eliminate all the emotional overtones of “prejudice” and “discrimination” and “second-class citizens”--he will get a clearer picture of the most disturbing aspect of the _School Segregation Cases_. One of the most cherished myths of American tradition, as strong and as insubstantial as any doctrine of religion, is that ours is “a government of laws, not men.” Viewed coldly and nakedly, the proposition is palpably absurd; wine is wine, and bread is bread. But by some devout act of political transubstantiation, the faith of the American people has imbued this doctrine with a special venerability: We have been reared to believe that law exists metaphysically, above and beyond the mortal men who enforce it. As an institution, the high court commands respect, not for the nine frail vessels beneath the robes, but out of deference to the higher, holier grail they represent. And this was what the court shattered in the _Brown_ case: The myth, the grail, the mystery of the law. “The judicial function is that of interpretation,” Sutherland once said; “it does not include the power of amendment under the guise of interpretation.” Cardozo said the same thing: “We are not at liberty to revise while professing to construe.” Hughes said it too: “The power of this court is not to amend, but only to expound the Constitution as an agency of the sovereign people who made it and who alone have authority to alter or unmake it.” But the court disdained these ancient and elementary rules. “By its decision in the _Brown_ case,” former Justice Byrnes has said, “the court did not interpret the Constitution. It really amended the Constitution.” This the court had no legal or moral right to do. It had only the power to do it--the absolute power, in Acton’s famous phrase, that left unrestrained, corrupts absolutely. Part III Prayer of the Petitioner