Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/388

 348 land." It also declares, (Art. 3,) that "The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties made, and which shall be made under their authority." It further declares, (Art. 3,) that the judicial power of the United States "shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts, as the congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish." Here, then, we have express, and determinate provisions upon the very subject. Nothing is imperfect, and nothing is left to implication. The constitution is the supreme law; the judicial power extends to all cases arising in law and equity under it; and the courts of the United States are, and, in the last resort, the Supreme Court of the United States is, to be vested with this judicial power. No man can doubt or deny, that the power to construe the constitution is a judicial power. The power to construe a treaty is clearly so, when the case arises in judgment in a controversy between individuals. The like principle must apply, where the meaning of the constitution arises in a judicial controversy; for it is an appropriate function of the judiciary to construe laws. If, then, a case under the