professional readers a
difficult principle of law which we have never before seen so concisely
and at the same time so clearly stated.

"In cases before it, the Supreme Court has no other jurisdiction over
constitutional questions than is possessed by the humblest judicial
tribunal, State or national, in the land. The only distinction is, that
it is the court of final resort, from whose decision there is no appeal.
The relations of all courts to the Constitution arise simply from the
fact that, being courts of law, they must give to litigants before them
_the law_; and the Constitution of the United States is _law_, and not,
like most European political constitutions, a collection of rules and
principles having only a moral obligation upon the legislative and
executive departments of the government. Accordingly, each litigant,
having the right to the highest law, may appeal from a statute of
Congress, or any other act of any officer or department, State or
national, and invoke the Constitution as the highest law. The court does
not formally set aside or declare void any statute or ordinance
inconsistent with the Constitution. It simply decides the case before it
_according to law_; and if laws are in conflict, according to that law
_which has the highest authority_, that is, the Constitution. The effect
of the decree of the final court on the _status_ of the parties or
property in that suit is of course absolute, and binds all departments
of the government. The constitutional principle involved in the
decision, being ascertained from the opinion,--if the court sees fit to
deliver a full opinion,--has in all future cases in courts of law simply
the effect of a judicial precedent, whatever that may be. Upon the
political department of the government and upon citizens the principle
decided has, in future cases, not the binding force of a portion of the
Constitution, but the moral effect due to its intrinsic weight and to
the character of the tribunal, and the practical authority derived from
the consideration that all acts inconsistent with it will be
inoperative, by reason of the judicial power which any citizen may
invoke against their operation."

Our space will not allow us to make further quotations. Among those
notes which are especially interesting to the non-professional reader we
may mention those on the much misunderstood Monroe doctrine; on
naturalization; on the effect of belligerent occupation on slavery, and