In so far as the Constitution continues to prevail, the Supreme Court becomes the final arbiter of the destinies of the United States.

Whenever its action can be legally invoked, it can, if necessary, declare the will of either or both the President and Congress of no effect; and inasmuch as almost every important question of public policy raises corresponding questions of Constitutional interpretation, its possible or actual influence dominates American political discussion.

Thus the lawyer, when consecrated as Justice of the Supreme Court, has become the High Priest of our political faith.

He sits in the sanctuary and guards the sacred rights which have been enshrined in the ark of the Constitution.
The importance of lawyers as legislators and executives in the actual work of American government has been an indirect consequence of the peculiar function of the Supreme Court in the American political system.
The state constitutions confer a corresponding function on the highest state courts, although they make no similar provision for the independence of the state judiciary.

The whole business of American government is so entangled in a network of legal conditions that a training in the law is the beet education which an American public man can receive.