[Jim W N]

The Leftist courts have done just than since the early 20th Century, overturning without explanation or constitutionally-based reasoning early precedent, for example the unexplained overthrow of the Slaughterhouse Cases.

Also, the Constitution nowhere gives the Court such sweeping powers as has been assigned in practice. The Court was created for INDIVIDUAL CASES and CONTROVERSIES, not to make national legislation from the bench. The rule of stare decisis for the Court is that an earlier case, IF FOUND TO BE CONSTITUTIONAL, is mandatory authority for subsequent cases with the same facts and questions of law.

The Supreme Law of the Land continues to be the Constitution, not the precedent of unconstitutional Court decisions.

[LambSlave]

I understand your point, but not sure I agree that the court was ever formally bound to show Constituional justification for accepting or rejecting precedent. Time and time again, one marginally bad precedent became the seed for worse, which led to broad new powers that can now not be undone without a fundamental rejection of this doctrine.

For example: the Commerce Clause. We started with a fairly narrow interpretation of this clause as limiting federal power into state affairs, until perhaps Swift v. United States (1905), which started the precedent of local action influencing commerce therefore being part of commerce, which was twisted ultimately to the travesty of Wickard v. Filburn (1942) within a single generation.