An important and usually overlooked aspect of judicial
review is that most people assume or believe that the court system, and the Supreme
Court in particular, has the power to review all laws passed by any legislature in the
United States. Besides being completely impractical (tens of thousands of laws are
passed each year nationwide, while the Supreme Court only hears around 200 cases per
year), the courts only review laws when legal challenges have been
made.
The Black Codes, for example, denied free slaves
their constitutional rights under the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, and yet they
remained on the books and enforced for nearly four decades after the Civil War. It was
that long before legal challenges were actually allowed to proceed upwards the judicial
system.
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