ltimately came before Chief Justice
Marshall, and the writ was granted. The traditional comment of President
Jackson is noteworthy: "John Marshall has given his judgment, let him
enforce it if he can." The Executive would not assist the Court, and the
Supreme Court was powerless. Switzerland, again, has a Federal tribunal:
it is a Court, as would be the Privy Council, which cannot command
officials of its own to execute its process; it depends for aid on the
Cantonal authorities. This state of things, I am told on good authority,
produces its natural result. The judgments of the Federal tribunal can
be rendered almost ineffective by the opposition of a Canton.

At this moment the statutes of the Imperial Parliament bind every man
throughout the United Kingdom. The Courts in Ireland are bound to give
effect to every statute, and the Irish Courts are supported by the
Sheriff and his officers, and in the last resort by the power of the
United Kingdom. Yet the very difficulty of the day is enforcing
judgments which run against Irish popular opinion. Is it common sense to
imagine that opposition which defies, often with success, the authority
of the Irish Queen's Bench Division, or ultimately of the House of
Lords, would not easily nullify the judgments of the Privy Council when
not only unpopular in Ireland, but in contradiction to a law devised by
the Irish Executive, passed by the Irish Parliament, supported by the
Irish Judges? The truth must be spoken: the Gladstonian Constitution
will, as regards the restrictions placed under it on the powers of the
Irish Parliament, inevitably turn out a mere paper Constitution. The
methods for compelling the observance of these limitations have neither
of them any real efficacity. The veto can with difficulty and but rarely
be used; the judgments or opinions of the Privy Council may have a
speculative interest, but will possess no coercive power.

If this be so the guarantees afforded by the Constitution for just
legislation are nugatory; they are worth neither more nor less than the
pompous securities for every kind of inalienable right which have
adorned the most splendid and the most transitory among the
Constitutions which have during a century been in turn created and
destroyed in France--that is, they are worth nothing; nor is it unfair
to conjecture that on this point my opinion agrees with the opinion of
many English Home Rulers. They think the limitations on the independence