Page:Federalist, Dawson edition, 1863.djvu/705

 and usurpations of the Supreme Court of the United States will be uncontrollable and remediless."' This, upon examination, will be found to be altogether made up of false reasoning upon misconceived fact.

In the first place, there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the National Courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the Courts of every State. I admit, however, that the Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution. But this doctrine is not deducible from any circumstance peculiar to the plan of the Convention; but from the general theory of a limited Constitution; and as far as it is true, is equally applicable to most, if not to all the State Governments. There can be no objection, therefore, on this account, to the Fœderal judicature, which will not lie against the local judicatures in general, and which will not serve to condemn every Constitution that attempts to set bounds to Legislative discretion.

But perhaps the force of the objection may be thought to consist in the particular organization of the Supreme Court: in its being composed of a distinct body of magistrates instead of being one of the branches of the Legislature, as in the Government of Great Britain and that of this State. To insist upon this point, the authors of the objection must renounce the meaning they have labored to annex to the celebrated maxim, requiring a separation of the departments of power. It shall, nevertheless, be conceded to them, agreeably to the interpretation given to that maxim in the course of these papers, that it is not violated by vesting the ultimate power of judging in a part of the Legislative body. But though this be not an absolute violation of that excellent rule, yet