jurisdiction. The
matter was taken up in Congress and resulted in the proposal, and
subsequent ratification by the states, of a constitutional amendment
designed to prevent such actions in future.[2] It has been the fashion
to speak of this incident as a striking example of the recall of
judicial decisions. Such indeed it was. The decision did not suit the
popular frame of mind and was promptly overruled in the method
prescribed by the Constitution. It went a long way, however, toward
establishing the Supreme Court as a power to be reckoned with on the
side of national supremacy and authority.

[Footnote 1: 2 Dallas, 419, decided in 1793.]

[Footnote 2: Amendment XI.]

Three years later the Court again took occasion to assert the national
supremacy in no uncertain fashion. The case was _Ware v. Hylton_[1] and
the Court laid down the proposition that a treaty of the Federal
Government (in this case the treaty of peace with Great Britain)
nullified previous state laws dealing with the subject matter. It is an
interesting circumstance that one of the counsel on the losing side in
this case was John Marshall of Virginia, and that this was the only case
he ever argued before the tribunal through which he was destined to play
so momentous a part in history.

[Footnote 1: 3 Dallas, 199, decided in 1796.]

In the annals of the Supreme Court and the development of American
constitutional law the name of John Marshall stands preeminent. He was
appointed Chief Justice by President John Adams, and took his seat on
the Bench at the beginning of the new century (February 4, 1801). He was
without judicial experience, but his record in other fields of activity
and his well-known Federalist principles pointed him out as a man to be
reckoned with and explain the aversion with which he was viewed by
Thomas Jefferson, the incoming President. The breach between the
President and the Chief Justice was widened by some of the early
decisions of the latter upholding the supremacy of the National
Government and the powers of the Supreme Court, notably the famous case
of _Marbury v. Madison_,[1] in which was asserted the power of the Court
to declare an act of Congress void as in conflict with the Constitution.
Some years elapsed, however, before a case was decided which squarely
involved a conflict between the powers of the Federal Government and the
powers of a state. The issue came up in the case of _United States v.
Judge Peters_.[2] T