s not at liberty to disregard it;
he is not at liberty to feel or to affect "constitutional scruples," and
to sit in judgment himself on the validity of a statute of the
government, and to nullify it, if he so chooses. After a law has passed
through all the requisite forms; after it has received the requisite
legislative sanction and the executive approval, the question of its
constitutionality then becomes a judicial question, and a judicial
question alone. In the courts that question may be raised, argued, and
adjudged; it can be adjudged nowhere else.

The President is as much bound by the law as any private citizen, and
can no more contest its validity than any private citizen. He may refuse
to obey the law, and so may a private citizen; but both do it at their
own peril, and neither of them can settle the question of its validity.
The President may _say_ a law is unconstitutional, but he is not the
judge. Who is to decide that question? The judiciary alone possesses
this unquestionable and hitherto unquestioned right. The judiciary is
the constitutional tribunal of appeal for the citizens, against both
Congress and the executive, in regard to the constitutionality of laws.
It has this jurisdiction expressly conferred upon it, and when it has
decided the question, its judgment must, from the very nature of all
judgments that are final, and from which there is no appeal, be
conclusive. Hitherto, this opinion, and a correspondent practice, have
prevailed, in America, with all wise and considerate men. If it were
otherwise, there would be no government of laws; but we should all live
under the government, the rule, the caprices, of individuals. If we
depart from the observance of these salutary principles, the executive
power becomes at once purely despotic; for the President, if the
principle and the reasoning of the message be sound, may either execute
or not execute the laws of the land, according to his sovereign
pleasure. He may refuse to put into execution one law, pronounced valid
by all branches of the government, and yet execute another, which may
have been by constitutional authority pronounced void.

On the argument of the message, the President of the United States
holds, under a new pretence and a new name, a _dispensing power_ over
the laws as absolute as was claimed by James the Second of England, a
month before he was compelled to fly the kingdom. That which is now
claimed by the President is in truth