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century afterwards, in the year 1821, expressed himself in this emphatic manner. “It is a fatal heresy,” he says, “to suppose that either our state governments are superior to the federal, or the federal to the state; neither is authorised, literally, to decide what belongs to itself; or its co-partner in government;” “in differences of opinion between their different sets of public servants, the appeal is to neither, but to their employers, peaceably assembled by their representatives in Convention.” If to these authorities, which so explicitly affirm the right of the states in their sovereign capacity, to decide both on the infraction of their rights, and the remedy, there be added the solemn decisions of the Legislatures of two leading states, Virginia and Kentucky, and the implied sanction of a majority of the states in the important political revolution, which shortly followed, and brought Mr. Jefferson into power on this very ground, it will be scarcely possible to add to the weight of authority, by which this fundamental principle in our system is sustained.
The committee having thus established the constitutional right of the states to interpose in order to protect their powers, it cannot be necessary to bestow, much time, in order to meet possible objections; particularly as they must be raised, not against the soundness of the argument by which the position is sustained, which they deem unanswerable, but against apprehended consequences, which, even if true, would not be so much an objection to the conclusion of the committee, as to the constitution itself, but which they are persuaded, will be found, on investigation, destitute of solidity. Under these impressions the committee propose to discuss the objections with all possible brevity.
It is objected in the first place, that the rights of the state, to interpose, rests on mere inference without any express provision in the constitution, and that it is not to be supposed if the constitution contemplated the exercise of a power of such high importance, that it would have been left to inference alone. In answer, the committee would ask those, who raise the objection, if the power of the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional, is not among the very highest and most important, that can be exercised by any department of the government, and where they can find any express provision to justify its exercise? Like the power in question, it also rests on mere inference, but an inference so clear, that no express provision could render it more certain. The simple facts, that the Judges must decide according to Law, and that the Constitution is paramount to the Law, imposes a necessity on the Court to declare the latter void, whenever it comes into conflict with the former; so from the fact, that the sovereign power is divided, and
