If you study American government, one of the first things you learn about is Marbury v. Madison and how the Supreme Court gave itself the power to challenge the constitutionality of legislation, because they made a good argument for it and nobody decided to oppose that move.

For any cognizant person, the takeaway is that “you have as much power as you are able and willing to claim and defend in political battles”, that there was a pivotal time when it was more common for people to be doing this, and that people have just been taking all their cues from the stabilized environment since then.