necessary to rely on the deliberate judgments of that department in affirmance of it. But it may be proper to add, that the judicial department has not only constantly exercised this right of interpretation in the last resort; but its whole course of reasonings and operations has proceeded upon the ground, that, once made, the interpretation was conclusive, as well upon the states, as the people.[1]
- ↑ Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. R. 304, 334, &c. 342 to 348; Cohens v. The State of Virginia, 6 Wheat. 11. 264, 370, 377 to 392; Id. 413 to
In maintaining these sentiments, sir, I am but asserting the rights of the people. I state what they have declared, and insist on their right to declare it. They have chosen to repose this power in the general government, and I think it my duty to support it, like other constitutional powers."
See also 1 Wilson's Law Lectures, 461, 462.—It is truly surprising, that Mr. Vice-President Calhoun, in his Letter of the 28th of August, 1832, to Governor Hamilton, (published while the present work was passing through the press,) should have thought, that a proposition merely offered in the convention, and referred to a committee for their consideration, that "the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court shall be extended to all controversies between the United States and an individual state, or the United States and the citizens of an individual state,"[a 1] should, in connexion with others, giving a negative on state laws, establish the conclusion, that the convention, which framed the constitution, was opposed to granting the power to the general government, in any form, to exercise any control whatever over a state by force, veto, or judicial process, or in any other form. This clause for conferring jurisdiction on the Supreme Court in controversies between the United States and the states, must, like the other controversies between states, or between individuals, referred to the judicial power, have been intended to apply exclusively to suits of a civil nature, respecting property, debts, contracts, or other claims by the United States against a state; and not to the decision of constitutional questions in the abstract. At a subsequent period of the convention, the judicial power was expressly extended to all cases arising under the constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States, and to all controversies, to which the United States should be a party,[a 2] thus covering the whole ground of a right to decide constitutional questions of a judicial nature. And this, as the Federalist informs us, was the substitute for a negative upon state laws, and the only one, which was deemed safe or efficient. The Federalist, No. 80.
