they show us how it is possible for a government to
get along with four-and-twenty interpreters of its laws and powers?
Gentlemen argue, too, as if, in these cases, the State would be always
right, and the general government always wrong. But suppose the
reverse,--suppose the State wrong (and, since they differ, some of them
must be wrong),--are the most important and essential operations of the
government to be embarrassed and arrested, because one State holds the
contrary opinion? Mr. President, every argument which refers the
constitutionality of acts of Congress to State decision appeals from the
majority to the minority; it appeals from the common interest to a
particular interest; from the counsels of all to the counsel of one; and
endeavors to supersede the judgment of the whole by the judgment of a
part.

I think it is clear. Sir, that the Constitution, by express provision,
by definite and unequivocal words, as well as by necessary implication,
has constituted the Supreme Court of the United States the appellate
tribunal in all cases of a constitutional nature which assume the shape
of a suit, in law or equity. And I think I cannot do better than to
leave this part of the subject by reading the remarks made upon it in
the convention of Connecticut, by Mr. Ellsworth; a gentleman, Sir, who
has left behind him, on the records of the government of his country,
proofs of the clearest intelligence and of the deepest sagacity, as well
as of the utmost purity and integrity of character. "This Constitution,"
says he, "defines the extent of the powers of the general government. If
the general legislature should, at any time, overleap their limits, the
judicial department is a constitutional check. If the United States go
beyond their powers, if they make a law which the Constitution does not
authorize, it is void; and the judiciary power, the national judges,
who, to secure their impartiality, are to be made independent, will
declare it to be void. On the other hand, if the States go beyond their
limits, if they make a law which is a usurpation upon the general
government, the law is void; and upright, independent judges will
declare it to be so." Nor did this remain merely matter of private
opinion. In the very first session of the first Congress, with all these
well-known objects, both of the Convention and the people, full and
fresh in his mind, Mr. Ellsworth, as is generally understood, reported
the bill for the org