The History and Workings of the U.S. Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court is the most powerful judicial branch in the world. It consist of 9 justices who are responsible for enforcing and upholding the Amendments in the Articles of Confederation and what is mentioned in the Constitution. Throughout American history there have been a little over a hundred Supreme Court Justices. The Judicial branch is very important because they determine if a law can get passed by making sure it is constitutional. The Supreme Court is very powerful mainly due to the Marbury v. Madison case (1803), this is when Judicial Review came to be.

Home-Supreme Court of the United States, https://www.supremecourt.gov/

Sometimes the Supreme Court's actions are controversial, and ironically aren't so constitutional themselves. For example the Dred Scott v. Sanford case, when the Supreme Court excluded African-Americans from the Constitution and determined they should not have rights as citizens. This decision was a major blow to the Supreme Court and was even a contributing factor of the Civil War. After the war this court decision was of course done away with. Then the 14th amendment was passed redefining citizenship and it stated that anyone born on American soil is considered a citizen.

The Supreme Court has many decisions to make. They receive thousands of cases a year and very few are considered.  Sometimes their consensus may be controversial, but many times some pretty great laws end up getting passed. The 15th Amendment granted African-American men the right to vote and the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. I think it is very important that citizens no matter the race or gender, can have a say in who is elected into office. Also I think citizens should have a say in the decisions of the government and should have a right to petition, so the first amendment is also very important in my opinion.