Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/403

 CH. IV.] and value. So, that it is indisputable, that the constitution was adopted under a full knowledge of this exposition of its grant of power to the judicial department.

§ 391. This is not all. The constitution has now been in full operation more than forty years; and during this period the Supreme Court has constantly exercised this power of final interpretation in relation, not only to the constitution, and laws of the Union, but in relation to state acts and state constitutions and laws, so far as they affected the constitution, and laws, and treaties of the United States. Their decisions upon these grave questions have never been repudiated, or impaired by congress. No state has ever deliberately or forcibly resisted the execution of the judgments founded upon