This so-called "activism" is not insane. It was the intent of the framers, so says Hamilton in Federals #78 where he writes "The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
Bump
There is a political backstory to this. In the election of 1800, Jefferson's Republicans defeated Adams' Federalists and took control of the presidency and the Congress. Under the Constitution as it existed at that time, the election was in November but the new President and Congress didn't take office until March.
Before the Republicans could take office, the lame-duck Federalists, fearing that they would be shut out of power, passed legislation vastly increasing the number of federal judges, including increasing the size of the Supreme Court, and Adams quickly appointed a slew of judges who were quickly confirmed by the lame-duck Federalist Congress. One of these judges was Adams' Secretary of State, John Marshall, who was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
Jefferson, fearing that the Federalist judges would frustrate his policies, began spreading the story that judicial review was an illegitimate power not contemplated by the Constitution.
Yes, several of you have it here.
Hamilton and others realized that ultimately SOMEONE had to decide what the words in the Constitution meant. Seems like common sense, but as we see in these early cases, it isn’t.
Interestingly, “judicial activism” and the USSC as seeing itself as the final arbiter very seldom happened in the 1800s until after the Civil War. Of course, there are big notable exceptions such as Dred Scott.
One of the biggest cases never came before the court, the co-called “mill acts” that held that one man’s private property rights can be superior to another’s if the first man is engaged in doing something for the common good. These were settled in multiple state courts ruling in favor of “developmental rights” vs. pristine property rights when mill owners would dam up rivers for water power to run their mills . . . that provided bread to all. People complaining their land was altered had their claims rejected.