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 That the people have an original right to establish for their future government such principles as in their opinion shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The original supreme will organizes the government and assigns to the different departments Iheir respec- tive powers. . . . The powers of the legislature are deiined and limited ; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers Umited and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if those limits may at any time be passed by those intended to be restrained.' .... The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and hke any other act is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitu- tion is not law. If the latter part be true, then written constitu- tions are absurd attempts on the part of the people»to limit a power in its own nature illimitable. ... If an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void, does it, notwithstanding its validity, 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 though 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 upon. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration. 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 upon the operation of each. So if a law be in opposition to the Constitution ; if both the law and the Constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide that case conformably to the law, disregarding the Constitution, or conformably to the Constitution, disregarding the law — the court must determine which of these confholing rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. If, then, the courts are to regard the Constitution, and the Con- stitution is Superior to any ordinary act of the legislature, the Constitution and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply. Those, then, who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered in court as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution and see only the law.
AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION PROPOSED BY THE HARTFORD CONVENTION, 1814.
Therefore resolved.—That it be and hereby is recommended to the Legislatures of the several States represented in this Conven-
