What did Alexander Hamilton mean when he called the courts "the least dangerous branch"? In light of the judicial review powers assumed by the...

Hamilton considered the judiciary the "least dangerous branch" because he believed it was the least likely to usurp too much power for itself and thereby undermine the checks and balances of the government. He most feared the executive branch, because he worried that a charismatic President might rally enough support to his cause that he could give himself powers far beyond what the Constitution intended.

He was probably right about the executive branch; Presidents have steadily grown in their power since the founding of the United States, particularly with regard to warfare. The Constitution says that Congress must declare war, but no US military action since 1945 has been accompanied by a formal declaration of war by Congress. Congress has signed off on a number of military actions since then, including the Vietnam War, Iraq War and Afghanistan War, but never formally declared war; and in many other military interventions Congress had no involvement whatsoever, such as the invasion of Grenada, the bombing of Libya, and the ongoing drone war in Syria.

But he may have been wrong to think that Congress would try to attain extra power, whereas the Supreme Court would not. The Supreme Court has expanded its power quite substantially, starting with officially affirming its authority to conduct judicial review in 1803, and continuing through a series of landmark Supreme Court decisions that have shaped US policy just as thoroughly as if they had been passed as legislation by Congress---from the desegregation of schools in 1954 to the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015. One could argue that they are just interpreting the Constitution as it ought to be (and it's hard to disagree with these particular rulings!), but it really does seem like they are actually expanding the meaning of past legislation to encompass broader groups of people, sort of saying what the law should have said rather than what it actually did or was intended to say.

This is problematic because the Supreme Court is not elected, and once appointed they are in place for life; this makes them clearly the least-democratic of all the branches of government. Hamilton may actually have seen this as a good thing; he was a bit dubious of giving the people too much power over government. But is it really a good thing? Even if we may agree with the outcomes, do we really want such important decisions being made with little or no public input?