overnment does not
possess the authority to construe its own powers.

Now, Sir, who does not see, without the aid of exposition or detection,
the utter confusion of ideas involved in this so elaborate and
systematic argument.

The Constitution, it is said, is a compact _between States_; the States,
then, and the States only, _are parties_ to the compact. How comes the
general government itself _a party_? Upon the honorable gentleman's
hypothesis, the general government is the result of the compact, the
creature of the compact, not one of the parties to it. Yet the argument,
as the gentleman has now stated it, makes the government itself one of
its own creators. It makes it a party to that compact to which it owes
its own existence.

For the purpose of erecting the Constitution on the basis of a compact,
the gentleman considers the States as parties to that compact; but as
soon as his compact is made, then he chooses to consider the general
government, which is the offspring of that compact, not its offspring,
but one of its parties; and so, being a party, without the power of
judging on the terms of compact. Pray, Sir, in what school is such
reasoning as this taught?

If the whole of the gentleman's main proposition were conceded to
him,--that is to say, if I admit, for the sake of the argument, that the
Constitution is a compact between States,--the inferences which he draws
from that proposition are warranted by no just reasoning. If the
Constitution be a compact between States, still that Constitution, or
that compact, has established a government, with certain powers; and
whether it be one of those powers, that it shall construe and interpret
for itself the terms of the compact, in doubtful cases, is a question
which can only be decided by looking to the compact, and inquiring what
provisions it contains on this point. Without any inconsistency with
natural reason, the government even thus created might be trusted with
this power of construction. The extent of its powers, therefore, must
still be sought for in the instrument itself.

If the old Confederation had contained a clause, declaring that
resolutions of the Congress should be the supreme law of the land, any
State law or constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, and that a
committee of Congress, or any other body created by it, should possess
judicial powers, extending to all cases arising under resolutions of
Congress, then the power of ultimate d