John Marshall.

premise of the great syllogism, slowly reach ing the final conclusion which demolishes for ever the theory of a compact of States and declares the Constitution to be the funda mental law of the American nation, we are led to wonder how any other view could ever have obtained. A whole volume is contained in the brief sentences so often quoted: "The general government, though limited as to its objects, is supreme with reference to those objects. This principle is a part of the Constitution and if there be any who deny its necessity, none can deny its authority;" and, again, referring to the power of the States against that of the na tion, how significant the language in the light of later events: "It is very true that whenever hostility to the existing system shall become universal, it will also be irre sistible. The people made the Constitution and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will and lives only by their will. But this supreme and irresistible power to make or unmake resides only in the whole body of the people, not in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any of the parts to exercise it is usurpation, and ought to be repelled by those to whom the people have delegated their power of repelling if." The relations existing between the State and Nation could not be more clearly or briefly stated than in the following words of the Chief Justice: "The Constitution and laws of a State, so far as they are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void. The States are constituent parts of the United States. They are members of one great empire — for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes sub ordinate. 1 The entire subject [of the appellate juris diction of the United States Supreme Court], though fully discussed, was not finally settled until the case of Cohens v. Virginia, when the decisive utterance was made by Marshall himself. 1 Honorable Bartlett Tripp, of Yankton, South Dakota.

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The case had originated in a State court; it had been carried to the highest State court; the State of Virginia was a party, and a writ of error had been issued to bring the matter before the Supreme Court of the United States for review. The appellate jur isdiction of the court was denied. It was argued that the Constitution never contem plated giving jurisdiction to the Federal Courts, in cases between a State and its own citizens. Moreover, it was further contended that there was nothing in the Constitution that indicated a design to make the State judiciaries subordinate to the judiciary of the United States; that the judiciary of every government must judge of its own juris diction; that the States were not to be denied the power of judging of their own laws; that as their legislatures were subject to no negative, so their judgments were subject to no appeal. The Chief Justice recognized the magni tude of the questions, and said that they vitally affected the Union. . . When we consider the situation of the government of the Union and of a State in relation to each other: the nature of our Constitution; the subordination of the State governments to that Constitution; the great purpose for which jurisdiction over all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States is confided to the judicial department, are we at liberty to insert in this general grant an exception of those cases in which a State may be a party? Will the spirit of the Constitution justify this at tempt to control its words? We think it will not. We think a case arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States is cognizable in the Courts of the Union, who ever may be the parties to that case. . . . "If the Constitution or laws may be vio lated by proceedings instituted by a State against its own citizens, and if that violation may be such as essentially to affect the Con stitution and the laws, such as to arrest the progress of the government in its consti tutional course, why should these cases be