{"id":163584,"date":"2026-09-25T14:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T22:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/25\/if-you-can-imagine-it-the-supreme-court-used-to-be-even-more-political\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T14:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T22:07:11","slug":"if-you-can-imagine-it-the-supreme-court-used-to-be-even-more-political","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/09\/25\/if-you-can-imagine-it-the-supreme-court-used-to-be-even-more-political\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Can Imagine It, The Supreme Court Used To Be Even More Political"},"content":{"rendered":"

Historian Rachel Shelden, author of The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History<\/a>, joins me to unpack how deeply political the Supreme Court actually was for its first century, why the Court\u2019s modern claim to be apolitical is a relatively recent invention, and why understanding that history matters for today\u2019s debates over court reform and legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways<\/strong>
* The Supreme Court was designed to be a political institution: 19th-century justices rode circuit, participated in state and local politics, ran for office, and even wrote legislation and presidential addresses.<\/p>\n

* Lifetime tenure didn\u2019t always mean staying on the Court. Many justices left for other roles they saw as equal or better, including David Davis, who left the Court to become a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1877.<\/p>\n

* The Court\u2019s image as an apolitical, isolated institution developed largely at the end of the 19th century and through the 20th, driven in part by the professionalization of lawyers and a reframing of the Constitution as a legal rather than political document.<\/p>\n

* Marbury v. Madison<\/em>\u2018s reputation as the moment the Court became apolitical is, according to Shelden, more myth than history, a narrative that took hold around the Court\u2019s 1890 centennial.<\/p>\n

* Originalism claims historical grounding, but Shelden argues it often isn\u2019t doing rigorous history. It selectively cites the past rather than engaging with the full, contested range of 19th-century constitutional debate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post If You Can Imagine It, The Supreme Court Used To Be Even More Political<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Historian Rachel Shelden, author of The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History<\/a>, joins me to unpack how deeply political the Supreme Court actually was for its first century, why the Court\u2019s modern claim to be apolitical is a relatively recent invention, and why understanding that history matters for today\u2019s debates over court reform and legitimacy.<\/p>\n

Key Takeaways<\/strong>
* The Supreme Court was designed to be a political institution: 19th-century justices rode circuit, participated in state and local politics, ran for office, and even wrote legislation and presidential addresses.<\/p>\n

* Lifetime tenure didn\u2019t always mean staying on the Court. Many justices left for other roles they saw as equal or better, including David Davis, who left the Court to become a U.S. Senator from Illinois in 1877.<\/p>\n

* The Court\u2019s image as an apolitical, isolated institution developed largely at the end of the 19th century and through the 20th, driven in part by the professionalization of lawyers and a reframing of the Constitution as a legal rather than political document.<\/p>\n

* Marbury v. Madison<\/em>\u2018s reputation as the moment the Court became apolitical is, according to Shelden, more myth than history, a narrative that took hold around the Court\u2019s 1890 centennial.<\/p>\n

* Originalism claims historical grounding, but Shelden argues it often isn\u2019t doing rigorous history. It selectively cites the past rather than engaging with the full, contested range of 19th-century constitutional debate.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Historian Rachel Shelden, author of The Political Supreme Court: A Forgotten History, joins me to unpack how deeply political the Supreme Court actually was for its first century, why the Court\u2019s modern claim to be apolitical is a relatively recent invention, and why understanding that history matters for today\u2019s debates over court reform and legitimacy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}