the Union, and others with the
principles of good government. The imposition of duties on imported
articles, and the emission of paper money, are specimens of each
kind. No man of sense will believe, that such prohibitions would be
scrupulously regarded, without some effectual power in the government to
restrain or correct the infractions of them. This power must either be a
direct negative on the State laws, or an authority in the federal courts
to overrule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles
of Union. There is no third course that I can imagine. The latter
appears to have been thought by the convention preferable to the former,
and, I presume, will be most agreeable to the States.

As to the second point, it is impossible, by any argument or comment,
to make it clearer than it is in itself. If there are such things as
political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government
being coextensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.
The mere necessity of uniformity in the interpretation of the national
laws, decides the question. Thirteen independent courts of final
jurisdiction over the same causes, arising upon the same laws, is a
hydra in government, from which nothing but contradiction and confusion
can proceed.

Still less need be said in regard to the third point. Controversies
between the nation and its members or citizens, can only be properly
referred to the national tribunals. Any other plan would be contrary to
reason, to precedent, and to decorum.

The fourth point rests on this plain proposition, that the peace of the
WHOLE ought not to be left at the disposal of a PART. The Union will
undoubtedly be answerable to foreign powers for the conduct of
its members. And the responsibility for an injury ought ever to
be accompanied with the faculty of preventing it. As the denial or
perversion of justice by the sentences of courts, as well as in any
other manner, is with reason classed among the just causes of war, it
will follow that the federal judiciary ought to have cognizance of all
causes in which the citizens of other countries are concerned. This is
not less essential to the preservation of the public faith, than to
the security of the public tranquillity. A distinction may perhaps be
imagined between cases arising upon treaties and the laws of nations and
those which may stand merely on the footing of the municipal law. The
former kind may be supposed