The
U.S. Supreme Court should never have taken this case. It is a
political question. Basically, the Supreme Court was making
public policy. That is not what they are to do. In the
Constitution, the Congress makes the policy and the Court interprets the policy.
This is not all that dissimliar from the Dred Scott case. Chief Justice Roger Tawney took this case to set the policy of slaves in the entire country.
Dred Scott was a slave who traveled into the free states with his master. Upon his return to the south he declared that since he set foot on free soil, he should be free. The opinion of the court was that slaves would be slaves throughout the country. This meant that slavery could not be illegal in any state, regardless of whether it was north or south.
Roger Tawney tried to set the country's policy in the 1850s. Eventually, this decision fueled the Civil War.