the Constitution and laws of the United States uniform all
combine to enhance the federal judicial power to a degree beyond that
envisaged even by Marshall and Story. As late as 1880 the questions
presented in the foregoing cases were before the Court in Williams _v._
Bruffy, 102 U.S. 248 (1880), which again involved the refusal of a
Virginia court to enforce a mandate of the Supreme Court. By the act of
December 23, 1914, 38 Stat. 790, the 25th section of the Judiciary Act
of 1789 which was carried over with modifications into the Revised
Statutes, Sec. 690; 28 U.S.C. Sec. 344 was amended so as to provide for
review of State court decisions on certiorari whether the federal claim
is sustained or denied. These provisions are now contained in 28 U.S.C.A.
1257 (1948).

The first case involving invalid State legislation arose under a treaty
of the United States. Ware _v._ Hylton, 3 Dall. 199 (1797). In Calder
_v._ Bull, 3 Dall. 386 (1798), the Court sustained a State statute as
not being an _ex post facto_ law. The first case in which a State
statute was held invalid as a violation of the Constitution was Fletcher
_v._ Peck, 6 Cr. 87 (1810), which came to the Supreme Court by appeal
from a United States circuit court and not by a writ of error under
section 25. Famous cases coming to the Court under section 25 were
Sturges _v._ Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, McCulloch _v._ Maryland, 4
Wheat. 316, and Dartmouth College _v._ Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518. All three
were decided in 1819 and the State legislation involved in each was held
void.

[258] That the great majority of the most influential members of the
Convention of 1787 thought the Constitution secured to courts in the
United States the right to pass on the validity of acts of Congress
under it cannot be reasonably doubted. Confining ourselves simply to the
available evidence that is strictly contemporaneous with the framing and
ratifying of the Constitution, we find the following members of the
Convention that framed the Constitution definitely asserting that this
would be the case: Gerry and King of Massachusetts, Wilson and
Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania, Martin of Maryland, Randolph,
Madison, and Mason of Virginia, Dickinson of Delaware, Yates and
Hamilton of New York, Rutledge and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina,
Davie and Williamson of North Carolina, Sherman and Ellsworth of
Connecticut. _See_ Max Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention (Yale
Univ. Press,