Pamphlets on Biography, Volume 16

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1884 - Biography
 

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Page 14 - If an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstanding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect ? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law ? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on.
Page 14 - It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.
Page 15 - Wheat. 518, announced by this court more than sixty years ago, have become so imbedded in the jurisprudence of the United States as to make them to all intents and purposes a part of the Constitution itself.
Page 21 - No man is desirous of becoming the peculiar subject of calumny. No man, might he let the bitter cup pass from him without self-reproach, would drain it to the bottom.
Page 21 - This instrument contains an enumeration of powers, expressly granted by the people to their government. It has been said that these powers ought to be construed strictly. But why ought they to be so construed? Is there one sentence in the constitution which gives countenance to this rule?
Page 24 - Advert, sir, to the duties of a Judge. He has to pass between the government, and the man whom that government is prosecuting, — between the most powerful individual in the community, and the poorest and most unpopular.
Page 18 - ... given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory. The constitution and laws of a State, so far as they are repugnant to the constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void. These States are constituent parts of the United States. They are members of one great empire, — for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate.
Page 17 - ... State may be a party. When we consider the situation of the government of the Union and of a State, in relation to each other ; the nature of our constitution ; the subordination of the State governments to that constitution ; the great purpose for which jurisdiction over all cases arising under the constitution and laws of the United States, is confided to the judicial department ; are we at liberty to insert in this general grant, an exception of those cases in which a State may be a party...
Page 14 - The question whether an act repugnant to the Constitution can become the law of the land is a question deeply interesting to the United States; but, happily, not of an intricacy proportioned to its interest. It seems only necessary to recognize certain principles supposed to have been long and well established to decide it.

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