Lunar v. Terrestrial constitutional law

Today is the birthday of Ambrose Bierce.  Here’s a bit from his Devil’s Dictionary (1911):

     LUNARIAN:  But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they have long been executed, and then only when brought before the court by some private person — does it not cause great confusion?
     TERRESTRIAN:  It does.
     LUNARIAN:  Why then should not your laws, previously to being executed, be validated, not by the signature of your President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
     TERRESTRIAN:  There is no precedent for any such course.
     LUNARIAN:  Precedent.  What is that?
     TERRESTRIAN:  It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three volumes each.  So how can any one know?