97 U.S. 288, 324-325
(1936).

[244] 303 U.S. 419, 443 (1938).

[245] Alabama State Federation of Labor _v._ McAdory, 325 U.S. 450, 461
(1945), citing Nashville, C. & St. L.R. Co. _v._ Wallace, 288 U.S. 249
(1933); Aetna Life Insurance Co. _v._ Haworth, 300 U.S. 227 (1937);
Maryland Casualty Co. _v._ Pacific Co., 312 U.S. 270, 273 (1941); Great
Lakes Co. _v._ Huffman, 319 U.S. 293, 299, 300 (1943); and Coffman _v._
Breeze Corporation, 323 U.S. 316 (1945). Here, as in other cases, the
Court refused to entertain hypothetical, or contingent questions, and
the decision of constitutional issues prematurely. For this same rule
_see also_, Altvater _v._ Freeman, 319 U.S. 359, 363 (1943).

[246] 306 U.S. 1 (1939).

[247] 307 U.S. 325 (1939).

[248] 312 U.S. 270 (1941).

[249] 300 U.S. 227 (1937).

[250] Maryland Casualty Co. _v._ Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U.S. 270,
273, (1941).

[251] Brillhart _v._ Excess Insurance Co., 316 U.S. 491 (1942). This was
a diversity of citizenship case which presented only local questions.

[252] Cohens _v._ Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 378 (1821).

[253] Stat. 73, 85-86.

[254] 1 Wheat. 304 (1816).

[255] 6 Wheat. 264 (1821).

[256] Ibid. 379.

[257] Ibid. 422-423. In Martin _v._ Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 304
(1816), Justice Story had traversed some of these same grounds. He, too,
began with the general assumptions that the Constitution was established
by the people of the United States and not by the States in their
sovereign capacities, that the Constitution is to be construed
liberally, and that the National Government is supreme in relation to
its objects; and had concluded that the Supreme Court had authority to
review State court decisions under the express provisions of articles
III and VI, and also from the necessity that final decision must rest
somewhere and from the importance and necessity of uniformity of
decisions interpreting the Constitution. Many years later in Ableman
_v._ Booth, 21 How. 506, 514-523 (1859), where the Wisconsin Supreme
Court, like the Virginia Courts earlier, had declared an act of Congress
invalid and disregarded a writ of error from the Supreme Court, Chief
Justice Taney on grounds both of dual sovereignty and national supremacy
was even more emphatic in his rebuke of State pretensions. His emphasis
on the indispensability of the federal judicial power to maintain
national supremacy, to protect the States from national encroachments,
and to make