For such decisive declarations we must turn to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Seizing upon three generally worded clauses of the Constitution this tribunal, presided over by justices, the majority of whom were nationalistic in sentiment, soon gave to the federal power such an interpretation as clearly to demonstrate that henceforth sovereignty in the American State was to reside in the Union. The three constitutional clauses thus utilized were the following:

1. "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." (Art. VI, Sec. 2.)

2. "The judical power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. . . . The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority." (Art. III, Secs. 1 and 2.)

3. "The Congress shall have power

to make all laws

which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or office thereof." (Art. I, Sec. 8.)

The first of these clauses was made to mean that whatever exercise of federal power the Supreme Court of the United States should decide to be consti

tutional, the people and governments of the individual States should accept as legally binding, and whatever acts of the States it should hold unconstitutional they should consider as null and void. The second of these clauses was made to give to the federal court full jurisdiction to consider all questions of conflict between the federal and state authorities. The third was employed to enable that tribunal to sanction the exercise by the Federal Government of a range of powers sufficient to enable it effectively to perform its functions as a sovereign, National State.

One of the very first laws passed by the federal legislature was the famous Judiciary Act which created the inferior federal courts authorized by the Constitution and outlined both their fields of jurisdiction and the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. To the importance of the twenty-fifth section of this Act which provided for a final review by that tribunal of all cases decided in the highest courts of the several Commonwealths in which should be drawn into question the relative competences of the Union and of the Commonwealths, and in which the decisions of the States' courts should be adverse to the federal power, we shall later refer.

A liberal construction by Congress and the Executive of the powers of the Federal Government began almost immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, as was especially shown in the establishment in 1791 of a National Bank and in the appellate jurisdiction granted the Supreme Court. The constitutionality of the exercise of these powers was vigorously denied by those who objected to such an increase

of federal power and influence, but the first open threat of resistance to the National Government was in 1793. This was brought about by the assumption by the federal Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear and determine a suit brought against the State of Georgia by a citizen of another State, and the actual rendition by it of a judgment against that State (Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas, 419). Many of the States took immediate alarm at this decision, not simply because they had debts the collection of which might thus be enforced against them, but upon the political ground that thus to hold them amenable to suit was a practical denial of that sovereignty which they claimed still to possess. That they were fully justified in attaching this significance to the decision is shown in the words of Justice James Wilson, who in the opinion which he rendered in the case, said: “This is a case of uncommon magnitude. One of the parties to it is a State; certainly respectable, claiming to be sovereign. The question to be determined is, whether this State, so respectable, and whose claim soars so high, is amenable to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States? This question, important in itself, will depend on others, more important still; and may, perhaps, be ultimately resolved into one no less radical than this-'do the people of the United States form a nation?'" Answering this question, Wilson declared: "As to the purposes of the Union Georgia is not a sovereign State."

After the rendition of this decision the State of Georgia declared her intention of refusing to allow it to be enforced, and passed a law threatening death

to any one who should attempt its execution. Actual collision between the state and the federal authority, however, was avoided by the adoption of a constitutional amendment declaring that the judicial power of the United States should not be construed to extend to suits brought against the States by citizens of other States.

From this dispute the Federal Government emerged clearly the winner, it being established that only by an express constitutional amendment were the States to be released from being dragged unwillingly to the bar of a federal tribunal.

In 1794 came the next threat of resistance to the Federal Government. A considerable number of the people of western Pennsylvania refused to pay the excise upon whisky levied by an act of Congress of 1791. At the call of the President of the United States the militia of Pennsylvania took the field, whereupon, overawed by this display of force, the resistance to the execution of the federal law melted away. Thus again was federal authority maintained.

In 1798-99 were issued by the legislatures of two of the States Resolutions asserting that the Federal Union was based upon a compact between the States, and very nearly, if not quite, asserting the doctrine that a State had the right to declare void and refuse cbedience to laws which it should deem unwarranted by the terms of that compact. The effect of these Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions was, however, to strengthen the national theory, for no other State recognized their doctrines as correct, but, upon the contrary, most of the other Commonwealths by resolu

tion explicitly declared them dangerous or erroneous. Furthermore, the very acts of Congress against which these Resolutions were directed were afterwards enforced in Virginia without resistance, and that, too, in a most offensive manner.1

In 1801 the strict constructionist Republicans under Jefferson came into power, but, so strong was the national drift that his administration witnessed the annexation of the vast Louisiana Territory and the enactment of the Cumberland Road Bill-both measures requiring for their constitutionality a very elastic interpretation of the powers of the Federal Government.

In 1803 came the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison (1 Cr., 137), in which, for the first time, an act of Congress was explicitly declared unconstitutional and therefore void of legal force. The great significance of the decision consisted not simply in that it upheld the power of the federal judiciary as opposed to that of the federal legislature, but that it pointed out that the tribunal to which resort should be had for an authoritative and final decision in the case of a federal enactment of doubtful constitutionality was not to the member States of the Union but to the federal Supreme Court.

In this case the imperative character of the Constitution was declared in the following words: "That the people have an original right to establish for their

1 For example, in the trial and conviction of Callender. For his alleged unjudicial conduct in this case the presiding federal judge, Chase, was afterwards impeached but acquitted.