Jefferson “Believed in Such a Thing as ”Federalist Judges.”

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Daniel J. Flynn, writing at The American Spectator, takes to task Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his assertion that there is no bias in the way judges rule from the bench. He explains (abridged):

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts lectured the president this week in a prepared statement.

“What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Trump finds himself in good company in criticizing rulings from the federal bench. One president went further — and did so by criticizing John Marshall, a man who served longer in John Roberts’s position than any other.

“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy,” Thomas Jefferson, coming out on the wrong side of Marbury v. Madison, reflected after his presidency. “Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.”

Whether Jefferson would agree with Chief Justice Roberts that there’s no such thing as “Obama judges” or “Trump judges” seems the stuff of counterfactual historians. Actual historians tell us that he certainly believed in such a thing as “Federalist” judges.