by Patrick J. Buchanan – January 29, 1996

Address to the Heritage Foundation

All just powers, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, derive from the consent of the governed. Governments are republican, he later said, “in proportion as they embody the will of the people and execute it.”

But in America today the power that stands astride this country like a colossus is not the power of the majority; it is not the power of the governed; it is the power of the Judiciary.