For intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of the nation. … The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. … These are examples of my position, that each of the three departments has equally the right to decide for itself what is its duty under the constitution, without any regard to what the others may have decided for themselves under a similar question. Thomas Jefferson
letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819. ‘The Writings of Thomas Jefferson,’ edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 15, p. 213 (1904). On the limits of Judicial review and the importance of all three branches supporting the constitution.