onstitutional Law

An eighth limitation on the power of the federal courts to invalidate
legislation springs from the principle of _stare decisis_, a limitation
which has been progressively weakened since the Court proceeded to
correct "a century of error" in Pollock _v._ Farmers' Loan & Trust
Co.[287] Because of the difficulty of amending the Constitution the
Court has long taken the position that it will reverse its previous
decisions on constitutional issues when convinced they are grounded on
error more quickly than in other types of cases in which earlier
precedents are not absolutely binding.[288] The "constitutional
revolution" of 1937 produced numerous reversals of earlier precedents as
other sections of this study disclose, and the process continues. In
Smith _v._ Allwright,[289] which reversed Grovey _v._ Townsend,[290]
Justice Reed cited fourteen cases decided between March 27, 1937, and
June 14, 1943, in which one or more earlier decisions of constitutional
questions were overturned. Although the general effect of the numerous
reversals of precedent between 1937 and 1950 was to bring judicial
interpretation more generally into accord with the formal text of the
Constitution, and to dispose of a considerable amount of constitutional
chaff, Justice Roberts was moved to say in the Allwright case that
frequent reversals of earlier decisions tended to bring adjudications of
the Supreme Court "into the same class as a restricted railroad ticket,
good for this day and train only."[291] A ninth limitation which has
nothing to do with statutory or constitutional construction as such and
which is altogether precautionary is that the Court will declare no
legislative act void unless a majority of its full membership so
concurs.[292]

The cumulative effect of these limitations is difficult to measure. The
limitation imposed by the case concept definitely has the effect of
postponing judicial nullification, but beyond this the most that can be
said is that constitutional issues affecting important issues can
ordinarily be presented in a case and so will sooner or later reach the
Court. The limitations of the presumptions of statutory validity, lack
of concern with the wisdom of the legislation, alternative construction,
separability of provisions and the like depend for their effectiveness
upon the consciousness of the individual judge of the judicial
proprieties and have been equally endorsed by those judges most
freq