Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer · ¶47

The pole-star for constitutional adjudications is John Marshall’s greatest judicial utterance that “it is a constitution we are expounding.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 407. That requires both a spacious view in applying an instrument of government “made for an undefined and expanding future,” Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 530, and as narrow a delimitation of the constitutional issues as the circumstances permit. Not the least characteristic of great statesmanship which the Framers manifested was the extent to which they did not attempt to bind the future. It is no less incumbent upon this Court to avoid putting fetters upon the future by needless pronouncements today.

U. S. Reports, bound volume
U. S. Reports, volume 343, at 579 (Library of Congress) · transcription: Caselaw Access Project
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.