that it is refuted by plain and express constitutional provisions. I
think the government of the United States does possess, in its
appropriate departments, the authority of final decision on questions of
disputed power. I think it possesses this authority, both by necessary
implication and by express grant.

It will not be denied, Sir, that this authority naturally belongs to all
governments. They all exercise it from necessity, and as a consequence
of the exercise of other powers. The State governments themselves
possess it, except in that class of questions which may arise between
them and the general government, and in regard to which they have
surrendered it, as well by the nature of the case as by clear
constitutional provisions. In other and ordinary cases, whether a
particular law be in conformity to the constitution of the State is a
question which the State legislature or the State judiciary must
determine. We all know that these questions arise daily in the State
governments, and are decided by those governments; and I know no
government which does not exercise a similar power.

Upon general principles, then, the government of the United States
possesses this authority; and this would hardly be denied were it not
that there are other governments. But since there are State governments,
and since these, like other governments, ordinarily construe their own
powers, if the government of the United States construes its own powers
also, which construction is to prevail in the case of opposite
constructions? And again, as in the case now actually before us, the
State governments may undertake, not only to construe their own powers,
but to decide directly on the extent of the powers of Congress. Congress
has passed a law as being within its just powers; South Carolina denies
that this law is within its just powers, and insists that she has the
right so to decide this point, and that her decision is final. How are
these questions to be settled?

In my opinion, Sir, even if the Constitution of the United States had
made no express provision for such cases, it would yet be difficult to
maintain, that, in a Constitution existing over four-and-twenty States,
with equal authority over all, _one_ could claim a right of construing
it for the whole. This would seem a manifest impropriety; indeed, an
absurdity. If the Constitution is a government existing over all the
States, though with limited powers, it necessarily follow