Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/381

§ 370. The cardinal conclusion, for which this doctrine of a compact has been, with so much ingenuity and ability, forced into the language of the constitution, (for the language no where alludes to it,) is avowedly to establish, that in construing the constitution, there is no common umpire; but that each state, nay each department of the government of each state, is the supreme judge for itself, of the powers, and rights, and duties, arising under that instrument.^[1] Thus, it has been solemnly asserted on more than one occasion, by some of the state legislatures, that there is no common arbiter, or tribunal, authorized to decide in the last resort, upon the powers and the interpretation of the constitution. And the doctrine has been recently revived with extraordinary zeal, and vindicated with uncommon vigour.^[2] A majority of the states, however, have never as-

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Bad as individuals are, states are worse. Clothe men with public authority, and almost universally they consider themselves, as liberated from the obligations of moral rectitude, because they are no longer amenable to justice." 1 Amer. Mus. 290.

1. Madison's Virginia Report, January, 1800, p. 6, 7, 8, 9; Webster's Speeches, 407 to 409, 410, 411, 419 to 421.
2. The legislature of Virginia, in 1829, resolved, that there is no common arbiter to construe the constitution of the United States; the constitution being a federative compact between sovereign states, each state has a right to construe the compact for itself." Georgia and South-Carolina have recently maintained the same doctrine; and it has been asserted in the senate of the United States, with an uncommon display of eloquence and pertinacity.^{[a 1]} It is not a little remarkable, that in 1810 the legislature of Virginia thought very differently, and then deemed the supreme court a fit and impartial tribunal.^{[a 2]} Pennsylvania at the same time, though she did not deny the court to be, under the constitution, the appropriate tribunal, was desirous of substituting some other arbiter.^{[a 3]} The recent resolutions of her own legislature (in March, 1831) show that she now approves of the supreme court, as the true and common ar-

1. 9 Dane's Abridg. ch. 187, art. 20, § 13, p. 589, &c. 591; Dane's App. 52 to 59, 67 to 72; 3 American Annual Register, Local Hist. 131.
2. North American Review, October, 1830, p. 509, 512; 6 Wheat. R. 358.
3. North American Review, id. 507, 508.