“No Constitution is the same on Paper and in Life,” wrote Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, who penned the Constitution’s final draft. What he meant was that words on paper do not change, but life does. The world changes.
For example, the framers couldn’t imagine television or the Internet. How should freedom of the press be applied to those media? The nine justices of the Supreme Court have the job of interpreting the Constitution in a changing world. They decide if acts of Congress and the president are allowed by the Constitution. This is called judicial review.

John Marshall served as chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 until his death in 1835.
◀ In 1803, the Supreme Court heard the case of Marbury v. Madison, which in essence concerned Marbury’s claim that he had been cheated out of his appointment as a federal judge. The court didn’t rule on his claim; rather, it ruled that the law under which the case was tried was unconstitutional. This was the first time that the Supreme Court claimed the right of judicial review.
Check It Out!
Has anyone ever served as both president of the United States and chief justice of the Supreme Court?
William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as both. He was president from 1909–1913 and chief justice from 1921–1930.

◀ Dred Scott was an enslaved man. His owner took him to free territory, where slavery was not allowed, and he lived there for five years. At the end of that time, Scott was returned to a state that allowed slavery. He sued for his freedom, claiming that he became free when he moved out of a slave-holding state. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that, because he was a slave, Scott was not a citizen and was not entitled to use the federal courts. Therefore, he was still enslaved. The ruling outraged people who were against slavery.

▲ Gold was discovered on Cherokee land, so the state of Georgia gave Cherokee land to white settlers. The Cherokees sued in federal court, and in 1832, the Supreme Court upheld their claim to their land. However, President Andrew Jackson refused to support the court’s ruling. Jackson said, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has rendered his decision. Now let him enforce it.” Later, the Cherokees were forced to leave their land.

◀ Sometimes, the Supreme Court has changed its mind. In 1940, the court ruled that schools could force students to salute the flag—even if their religion forbade it. In 1943, the court reversed this ruling.

▲ It can take the court years to reverse an unfair ruling. In 1896, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the court ruled that forcing African Americans to sit in separate railway cars was legal. But the cars had to be equal to those set aside for whites. This was called the “separate but equal” ruling, and it was used to justify segregation in all kinds of public places. But in 1954, the court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate schools for African American children were unequal by their very nature. This meant that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
Supreme Court justices don’t all agree on how to interpret the Constitution. Some believe in a “living Constitution,” meaning they think the framers wanted the Constitution to be flexible enough to allow for an ever-changing world. Other justices, who are known as originalists, insist that the courts should base their rulings only on the framers’ original intent. But who decides what that intent was? ▼

Explore inside the Supreme Court
In 1966, the court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that criminal suspects must be told their rights. They have the right to remain silent and to have an attorney present. They also have the right to have an attorney provided by the state if they can’t afford one. ▼

◀ The Supreme Court also affects public policy when it refuses to hear a case, as you can see from this recent example. Surveillance means secretly listening to or reading a private communication. It might be a telephone call or an e-mail. According to the Fourth Amendment, the government must ask a judge for a search warrant before doing this. The judge decides if the surveillance is needed to find illegal activity. Since 2001, following the attacks of September 11, the government has sometimes conducted surveillance without first obtaining a search warrant. In 2014, the Supreme Court decided not to hear a case about these activities.