you have enacted a law, when process thereon has
been issued and suit brought, it becomes eventually
necessary that the Judges decide on the case before
them and declare what the law is. . . .
The decision of the Supreme Court is, and of necessity must be, final. . . .
If the Legislature may decide conclusively
on the Constitution, the sovereignty of America will
no longer reside in the people but in Congress, and the
Constitution is whatever they choose to make it."[1]
Aaron Ogden of New Jersey asked, if "the Legislature
should pass bills of attainder or an unconstitutional
tax, where can an oppressed citizen find protection but
in a Court of Justice, firmly denying to carry into exe-
cution an unconstitutional law. What power else can
protect the State sovereignties, should the other
branches combine against them?” Archibald Henderson of North Carolina said it amounted to despotism
if Congress were to be the sole judge of the extent and
obligations of their own statutes. "If the constitutional check which the Judges were to be on the Legislature is to be completely done away and the Judge
who dares to question the authority of Congress is to
be hurled from his seat, then all the ramparts which
the Constitution has erected around the liberties of
the people are prostrated at one blow"; the concentration of legislative and judicial power in the
hands of Congress was the definition of tyranny;
"and wherever you find it the people are slaves,
whether they call their government a monarchy,
republic or democracy." Thomas Morris of New York upheld the power of Courts to decide a law not
- ↑ See King, IV, letter of Robert T. Troup to Rufus King, April 9, 1802, describing the speeches of Morris. See also Constitutional Republicanism (1803), by Benjamin Austin, attacking Morris' speech with great sarcasm, and for full accounts of the speech, see New York Spectator, Jan. 23, 30, 1802; Farmer's Weekly Museum, Feb, 2, 15, 1802.
