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18 the sphere of its legitimate authority."^ Its great purpose was to avoid conflict of decision between State and Federal authorities, to secure to every litigant whose rights dei>ended on Federal law a decision by the Federal Courts, and to prevent the Courts of the several States from impairing the authority of the Federal Government; and had the Court not been vested with this power, it may well be doubted whether the National Union could have been preserved* It was not without reason that John C. Calhoun deemed this Section "the entering wedge", destroying, as he be- lieved, **the relation of co-equals and co-ordinates between the Federal Government and the Governments of the individual States. . . . The eflfect of this,'" he said, " is to make the Government of the United States the sole judge, in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers. ... It is the great enforcing power to compel a State to submit to all acts. . . . Without it, the whole course of the Government would have been different — the conflict between the co-ordinate Governments, in reference to the extent of their respective powers, would have been subject only to the action of the amending power, and thereby the equilibrium of the system been preserved, and the practice of the Government made to conform to its Federal character." * That Calhoun rightly attributed to the operation of this Section the development of the Government on the National rather than on the Federal theory and into a Nation rather than into a Confederacy must be acknowledged by all who read the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia — that opinion which has been

1 Commercial Bank of Kentucky v. Oriffith (1840), 14 Pet. 58; Mueouri v. Andriano (1891). 188 U. S. 497; Virginia v. Rives (1880), 100 U. S. 338; Murdock V. Memphis (1875), 20 Wall. 590.


 * DiequisiHon on the Constitution and Oovemment of the United States (1851), by John C. Calhouiu 817-840.