Until the Civil War, judicial review fell well within the perceived constraints declared by Alexander Hamilton. There was a balance of power. After Lincoln demonstrated that the Federal government (and its military might) made Hamilton's assertions on judicial power a pipe dream, the court has been used to political end ever since. Only recently has the court become so arrogant as to assert its own will and to effectively legislate from the bench.
As Jefferson astutely observed:
"The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body — working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.
Exerpt from:
Abraham Lincoln's
First Inaugural Address
Monday, March 4, 1861
Interestingly, most negative comments about the power of the central government usually concern the rise of executive power over the legislative branch.
There have been many notable cases (especially during the civil rights era) when the government just refused to carry out court rulings.
As a matter of fact we are seeing such a situation now with the prisoners in Cuba. The courts have made several ruling abut procedural steps to be taken with regards to hearings, etc. and so far, have been ignored.
Judges have seemed to be reasonably good at preserving their domain. Congress, on the other hand seems to have lost much of its independence.