The Limits of the Court and Politics

"The Court’s authority—possessed of neither the purse nor the sword—ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction. Such feeling must be nourished by the Court’s complete detachment, in fact and appearance, from political entanglements and by abstention from injecting itself into the clash of political forces in political settlements."

Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (Frankfurter, J. dissenting.)