icy of that body
in some of the important cases that have come before it. Take, for
example, the _Legal Tender_ decisions. The court at first declared the
legal tender acts unconstitutional by a majority of five to three. Then
one of the justices who voted with the majority having resigned and
Congress having created an additional judgeship, Justices Strong and
Bradley were appointed to fill these vacancies. The former, as a member
of the Supreme Bench of the State of Pennsylvania, had rendered a
decision upholding the constitutionality of these acts, and the latter
was said to hold the same opinion. At any rate the first decision was
reversed by a majority of five to four. The point at issue in these two
decisions was whether Congress had authority to enact measures of this
kind in time of war. The matter coming up again, the Supreme Court
decided, and this time by a majority of eight to one, that Congress had
this power, not only during war, but in times of peace as well.[96]

Reference should also be made in this connection to the Income Tax
decisions of 1895. The first of these was a tie, four to four, Justice
Jackson being absent. Six weeks later the second decision was read
declaring the Income Tax unconstitutional by a vote of five to four,
Justice Shiras, who had voted on the first hearing to uphold the Income
Tax, now voting against it. This change in the attitude of a single
member of the court converted what would have been a majority for, into
a majority against the measure, overruled a line of decisions in which
the tax had been sustained and thereby effectually deprived Congress of
the power to impose a Federal Income Tax until such time as the court
may change its mind. Even more significant are the recent Insular cases
in which the division of opinion and diversity of grounds for the
conclusions reached are, to say the least, surprising.

One may well ask, after viewing these decisions, if constitutional
interpretation as practiced by the Supreme Court is really a science in
the pursuit of which the individual temperament, personal views and
political sympathies of the Justices do not influence the result. Have
we gained enough under this system in the continuity and consistency of
our legislative policy and its freedom from class or political bias to
compensate us for the loss of popular control? That these questions are
likely to receive serious consideration in the near future we can
scarcely doubt,