McCardle & Jurisdiction Stripping Legislation

Professors Choper et al note:

"According to Charles L. Black, Jr.,...Congress' power to restrict federal court jurisdiction is 'the rock on which rests the legitimacy of the judicial work in a democracy.' Crudely summarized, his view is that the vast power exercised today by courts, and especially the Supreme Court, is legitimate only insofar as it rests on popular consent--and any claim that the people have consented would be empty unless it were recognized that the people, through their elected representatives, could limit the federal judiciary's exercise of judicial review. Black offers his argument as a friend, not a critic, of federal judicial review. Should other friends of judicial review be persuaded?"

On the other hand, should critics of judicial activism concede that activism is legitimate so long as Congress has refrained from stripping jurisdiction from the Court? Assuming the Court has gone beyond its constitutional authority in some (or many) of its decisions, does the failure of Congress to chastise the Court somehow legitimize illegitimate and abusive assertions of power by the Court? Does Congress have power to waive the right of the People to insist that the Court not go beyond the limits of its legitimate constitutional authority?

Remember also that the Constitution was not ratified at the national democratic level, but rather it is federally democratic, ratified by three-fourths of the several, sovereign states with each state having one vote to ratify.