[lehighguy]

They did stand up to Lincoln, ruling that his suspension of habeous corpus and other authoritarian measures were unconstitutional. The result is that Lincoln said he would ignore the ruling and do whatever he wanted, since he had all the guns.

The constitution is only as strong as the peoples will to enforce it. If they elect leaders who believe power flows from the barrel of a gun and they don't need to obey the constitution, what do you expect to happen.