Page:The Supreme Court in United States History vol 1.djvu/41

Rh that the uniformity of the Federal authority throughout the parties to it could be preserved ; or that, without this uniformity, anarchy and disunion could be prevented." The possession of these powers by the Court, moreover, is vital to the preservation not merely of our form of Government, but of the rights and liberties of the individual citizen. "Its exercise," said Judge Field at the Centennial Celebration of the Court, "is necessary to keep the administration of the Grovenment, both of the United States and of the States in all their branches, within the limits assigned to them by the Constitution of the United States and thus secure justice to the people against the unrestrained legislative will of either — the reign of law against the sway of arbitrary power." In any community, the fullness and suflSciency of the securities which surround the individual in the use and enjoyment of his property and his liberty constitute one of the most certain tests of the character and value of the government ; and the chief safeguard of the individual's right is to be found in the existence of a Judiciary vested with authority to maintain the supremacy of law above the possession and exercise of governmental power. If the result of an infringement of a written Constitution by the Legislature is to be avoided, "there must be a tribunal to which an immediate appeal for redress can be made by any person who is damnified by the action

^Jchn C. Calhoun in the Nullification debate in 1883 said that the power of the Court "had its origin in the necessity of the case. Where there were two or more rules established, one from a higher, and the other from a lower authority, which might come into conflict in applying them to a particular case, the Judge could not avcnd pronouncing in favor of the superior against the inferior. It was from this necessity, and this alone, that the power which is now set up to oyermle the rights of the States, against an express provision of the Constitution, was derived. It had no other origin. That he had traced it to its true sotiroe would be manifest from the fact that it was a power which, so far from being conferred exclusively CO the Supreme Court, as was insisted, belonged to every Court, inferior and supe- rior. State and g^ieral.*' S2d Cong,, 2d 899a,, Feb. 15, 1838.