They could!
President Jackson stood up to John Marshall.
But that was when Presidents were made of sterner stuff.
If the Founding Fathers were able to see the condition of the Nation they built.....
And Lincoln stood up to the Court routinely.
Lincoln is an even better model, because he's a hero to everyone.
If Jefferson had stood up to Marshall in 1803, we wouldn't have this mess.
Hell, we probably wouldn't have been a Civil War, because there would have been no Dred Scott decision by which the Supreme Court could, singlehandedly, overrule 50 years of careful compromise politics on slavery.
And come to think of it, there would not have been racial segregation either after the Civil War, because there would have been so Supreme Court to overrule the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1873 and the three post-Civil War Amendments by allowing segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Oh well.
It didn't happen like that then.
Anyone want to take odds that it will happen now?