omplete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly
essential in a limited constitution. By a limited constitution, I
understand one which contains certain specified exceptions to the
legislative authority.... Limitations of this kind can be preserved in
practice no other way than through the medium of the courts of justice,
whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor
of the Constitution void....[58]

"Some perplexity respecting the rights of the courts to pronounce
legislative acts void, because contrary to the Constitution, has arisen
from an imagination that the doctrine would imply a superiority of the
judiciary to the legislative power. It is urged that the authority which
can declare the acts of another void, must necessarily be superior to
the one whose acts may be declared void....

"There is no position which depends on clearer principles, than that
every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the tenor of the
commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act,
therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid. To deny this
would be to affirm that the deputy is greater than his principal; that
the servant is above his master; that the representatives of the people
are superior to the people themselves; that men, acting by virtue of
powers, may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what
they forbid.

"If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the
constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction
they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be
answered, that this can not be the natural presumption, where it is not
to be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution. It
is not otherwise to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to
enable the representatives of the people to substitute their _will_ to
that of their constituents. It is far more rational to suppose that the
courts were designed to be an intermediate body between the people and
the legislature, in order, among other things, to keep the latter within
the limits assigned to their authority. The interpretation of the laws
is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in
fact, and must be, regarded by the judges as a fundamental law. It
therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the
meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If
there