to the legislature of
Maryland, and urged it as a reason for rejecting the Constitution. Mr.
Pinckney, himself also a leading member of the Convention, declared it
to the people of South Carolina. Everywhere it was admitted, by friends
and foes, that this power was in the Constitution. By some it was
thought dangerous, by most it was thought necessary; but by all it was
agreed to be a power actually contained in the instrument. The
Convention saw the absolute necessity of some control in the national
government over State laws. Different modes of establishing this control
were suggested and considered. At one time, it was proposed that the
laws of the States should, from time to time, be laid before Congress,
and that Congress should possess a negative over them. But this was
thought inexpedient and inadmissible; and in its place, and expressly as
a substitute for it, the existing provision was introduced; that is to
say, a provision by which the federal courts should have authority to
overrule such State laws as might be in manifest contravention of the
Constitution. The writers of the Federalist, in explaining the
Constitution, while it was yet pending before the people, and still
unadopted, give this account of the matter in terms, and assign this
reason for the article as it now stands. By this provision Congress
escaped the necessity of any revision of State laws, left the whole
sphere of State legislation quite untouched, and yet obtained a security
against any infringement of the constitutional power of the general
government. Indeed, Sir, allow me to ask again, if the national
judiciary was not to exercise a power of revision on constitutional
questions over the judicatures of the States, why was any national
judicature erected at all? Can any man give a sensible reason for having
a judicial power in this government, unless it be for the sake of
maintaining a uniformity of decision on questions arising under the
Constitution and laws of Congress, and insuring its execution? And does
not this very idea of uniformity necessarily imply that the construction
given by the national courts is to be the prevailing construction? How
else, Sir, is it possible that uniformity can be preserved?

Gentlemen appear to me, Sir, to look at but one side of the question.
They regard only the supposed danger of trusting a government with the
interpretation of its own powers. But will they view the question in its
other aspect? Will