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 amendment of the Constitution. But in our federal system the evil is without remedy, if the federal courts be allowed to fix the limits of federal power with reference to those of the States. It would place every thing in the State governments, except their mere existence, at the mercy of a single department of the federal government. The maxim, stare decisis, is not always adhered to by our courts; their own decisions are not held to be absolutely binding upon themselves. They may establish a right to-day and unsettle it to-morrow. A decision of the supreme court might arrest a State in the full exercise of an important and necessary power, which a previous decision of the same court had ascertained that she possessed. Thus the powers of the State governments, as to many important objects, might be kept indeterminate and constantly liable to change, so that they would lose their efficiency, and forfeit all title to confidence and respect. It is true, that in this case, too, there is a possible corrective in the power to amend the Constitution. But that power is not with the aggrieved State alone; it could be exerted only in connexion with other States, whose aid she might not be able to command. And even if she could command it, the process would be too slow to afford effectual relief. It is impossible to imagine that any free and sovereign State ever designed to surrender her power of self-protection in a case like this, or ever meant to authorize any other power to reduce her to a situation so helpless and contemptible.