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The United States Supreme Court exists to resolve constitutional disputes among lower courts and the other branches of government, allowing elected officials, citizens, and businesses to act without legal uncertainty. American law and society function more effectively when the Court resolves these ambiguous questions of Constitutional law. Since lower courts must defer to its reasoning, the Court should also promulgate clear and consistent legal doctrine, giving a reason for its judgment that a majority of justices support.

Yet a Court that prioritizes resolving many disputes will at times produce contradictory sets of opinions or fail to provide a rationale and legal precedent for its decision at all. In either case, it produces an unreasoned judgment. Conversely, a Court that prioritizes logically consistent doctrine will fail to resolve many underlying disputes in law and society. Inconsistency and Indecision in the United States Supreme Court demonstrates that over time, institutional changes, lobbied for by the justices, substantially reduced unreasoned judgments in the Court’s output, coinciding with a reduction in the Court’s caseload. Hence, the Supreme Court historically emphasized the first goal of dispute resolution, but evolved into a Court that prioritizes the second goal of logically consistent doctrine. As a result, the Court today fails to resolve more underlying questions in law and society in order to minimize criticism of its output from other elites. In so doing, the modern Court often fails to live up to its Constitutional obligation.

A New Edition of an Important Interpretation of One of the Greatest Events in World History
The Revolutionary generation believed they were living in dangerous, turbulent times. Their uprising against British imperial authority beginning in the 1760s represented an attempt to preserve their liberties in the face of what they perceived as a conspiracy from above, ultimately brought on by a tyrannical king and Parliament. The actual number of insurgents—we call them rebels or patriots—represented no more than 20 to 25 percent of the populace. Approximately the same number of persons refused to renounce their loyalty to the British Crown; and thousands of them joined British arms to crush the patriot insurrection. Not committed to supporting either side were large numbers of neutrals whose allegiance varied with their proximity to competing military forces. Once independence was secured, however, a great shift occurred. Some key Revolutionary leaders began to worry that the common people, if given too much political authority, would produce agitation from below that could destroy the delicate fabric of the newly established republic. Reckoning with this social and political disorder resulted in a series of constitutional settlements. What emerged was a more democratic system of government operating, at least theoretically, in the name of a sovereign people who had replaced the king and Parliament.
    In Insurrection: The American Revolution and Its Meaning, award-winning historian James Kirby Martin discusses the causes, course, and consequences of the War for Independence. While interpretations of the Revolution and its short- and long-term meaning abound, Martin emphasizes that the insurrection against British monarchism led to more profound changes in human institutions and ideals than many of the Revolutionary leaders actually envisioned or wanted. Once unleashed, the genie of greater freedom and liberty for all could not be forced back into the bottle, no matter how much some persons would have desired.