The question of power in American government is an interesting one. Much of the work of the Constitution goes into restricting powers to limited domains or bala

The question of power in American government is an interesting one. Much of the work of the Constitution goes into restricting powers to limited domains or balancing powers against each other. I think it is commonly held that the modern federal government as a whole is vastly more powerful than what it was envisioned to become by the Founders. While American States still enjoy a large degree of autonomy for their own affairs, through the delegation of so much Congressional power into the Executive and the clever use of the Enumerated Powers of Congress to legislate on matters not obviously under its purview, today's federal goverment is enormous and exercises a high degree of centralized control. But what is the only force which can impede the accumulation of power by the federal goverment? A powerful Judiciary which can say "no" to unconstitutional overreach. It's almost necessary for the Supreme Court to be as powerful as it is to rein in the other two branches. This is a classic "conservative" Court move, to say no to the other two branches of the federal government. The balance of power between the federal goverment and the States shifted dramatically 100 years in, with the ratification of the 14th Amendment after the Civil War. Because of a legacy of some States trying to retain the antebellum (racist) status quo, the 14th empowered the federal Constitution with the ability to demand that States respect the rights of citizens as endowed by the federal Constitution. Suddenly the Supreme Court gets way more powerful because now, on every rights-related matter where it could declare federal actions unconstitutional, it can now also declare State actions unconstitutional. Here lie many of the classic "liberal" court moves that say no to State governments. The danger on either side is that the Court, being so powerful a force against either Congress and the Executive, or against the States, is that it then has to be trusted to exercise proper _self_ control, since it has, by the Founder's design, very little natural accountability.