348
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
land." It also declares, (Art. 3,) that "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties made, and which shall be made under their authority." It further declares, (Art. 3,) that the judicial power of the United States "shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts, as the congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish." Here, then, we have express, and determinate provisions upon the very subject. Nothing is imperfect, and nothing is left to implication. The constitution is the supreme law; the judicial power extends to all cases arising in law and equity under it; and the courts of the United States are, and, in the last resort, the Supreme Court of the United States is, to be vested with this judicial power. No man can doubt or deny, that the power to construe the constitution is a judicial power.
[1] The power to construe a treaty is clearly so, when the case arises in judgment in a controversy between individuals.
[2] The like principle must apply, where the meaning of the constitution arises in a judicial controversy; for it is an appropriate function of the judiciary to construe laws.
[3] If, then, a case under the
constitu-
to result, as a necessary consequence, from the union of these states in one national government, and they may be considered as requisite to its existence. The judicial power in every government must be co-extensive with the power of legislation. Were there no power to interpret, pronounce, and execute the law, the government would either perish through its own imbecility, as was the case with the old confederation, or other powers must be assumed by the legislative body to the destruction of liberty." 1 Kent's Comm. (2d ed. p. 296,) Lect. 14, 277.
- ↑ 4 Dane's Abridg. ch. 187, art. 20, § 15, p. 590; Dane's App. § 42, p. 49, 50; § 44, p. 52, 53; 1 Wilson's Lectures, 461, 462, 463.
- ↑ See Address of Congress, Feb. 1787; Journals of Congress, p. 33; Rawle on the Constitution, App. 2, p. 316.
- ↑ Bacon's Abridgment, Statute. H.
