Gentlemen appear to me, Sir, to look at but one side of the question.  They regard only the supposed danger of trusting a government with the interpretation of its own powers.  But will they view the question in its other aspect?  Will they show us how it is possible for a government to get along with four-and-twenty interpreters of its laws and powers?  Gentlemen argue, too, as if, in these cases, the State would be always right, and the general government always wrong.  But suppose the reverse,—­suppose the State wrong (and, since they differ, some of them must be wrong),—­are the most important and essential operations of the government to be embarrassed and arrested, because one State holds the contrary opinion?  Mr. President, every argument which refers the constitutionality of acts of Congress to State decision appeals from the majority to the minority; it appeals from the common interest to a particular interest; from the counsels of all to the counsel of one; and endeavors to supersede the judgment of the whole by the judgment of a part.

I think it is clear.  Sir, that the Constitution, by express provision, by definite and unequivocal words, as well as by necessary implication, has constituted the Supreme Court of the United States the appellate tribunal in all cases of a constitutional nature which assume the shape of a suit, in law or equity.  And I think I cannot do better than to leave this part of the subject by reading the remarks made upon it in the convention of Connecticut, by Mr. Ellsworth; a gentleman, Sir, who has left behind him, on the records of the government of his country, proofs of the clearest intelligence and of the deepest sagacity, as well as of the utmost purity and integrity of character.  “This Constitution,” says he, “defines the extent of the powers of the general government.  If the general legislature should, at any time, overleap their limits, the judicial department is a constitutional check.  If the United States go beyond their powers, if they make a law which the Constitution does not authorize, it is void; and the judiciary power, the national judges, who, to secure their impartiality, are to be made independent, will declare it to be void.  On the other hand, if the States go beyond their limits, if they make a law which is a usurpation upon the general government, the law is void; and upright, independent judges will declare it to be so.”  Nor did this remain merely matter of private opinion.  In the very first session of the first Congress, with all these well-known objects, both of the Convention and the people, full and fresh in his mind, Mr. Ellsworth, as is generally understood, reported the bill for the organization of the judicial department, and in that bill made provision for the exercise of this appellate power of the Supreme Court, in all the proper cases, in whatsoever court arising; and this appellate power has now been exercised for more than forty years, without interruption, and without doubt.