Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/245

Rh you have enacted a law, when process thereon has been issued and suit brought, it becomes eventually necessary that the Judges decide on the case before them and declare what the law is. . • . The decision of the Supreme Court w, and of necessity must be, final. ... If the Legislature may decide conclusively on the Constitution, the sovereignty of America will no longer reside in the people but in Congress, and the Constitution is whatever they choose to make it." ^ Aaron Ogden of New Jersey asked, if " the Legislature should pass bills of attainder or an unconstitutional tax, where can an oppressed citizen find protection but in a Court of Justice, firmly denying to carry into exe- cution an unconstitutional law. What power else can protect the State sovereignties, should the other branches combine against them ?" Archibald Hender- son of North CaroUna said it amounted to despotism if Congress were to be the sole judge of the extent and obligations of their own statutes. "If the constitu- tional check which the Judges were to be on the Legis- lature is to be completely done away and the Judge who dares to question the authority of Congress is to be hurled from his seat, then all the ramparts which the Constitution has erected around the liberties of the people are prostrated at one blow'*; the con- centration of legislative and judicial power in the hands of Congress was the definition of tyranny; "and wherever you find it the people are slaves, whether they call their government a monarchy, republic or democracy." Thomas Morris of New York upheld the power of Courts to decide a law not

1 See King, IV, letter of Robert T. Troup to Rufus King, April 9, 1802, describing the speeches of Morris. See also (JorutUutional RepMieanimn (1803), by Benjamin Austin, attacking Morris' spee^ with great sarcasm, and for full accounts of the speech, see New York Speotator, Jan. 23» 90, 1802; Farmer^s WeMy Mu$eum, Feb. 2. 16, 1802.