in Virginia he had thrown himself with the ardor of a soldier.  Later, as a member of Congress, a representative to France, and Secretary of State, he had aided the Federalists in establishing the new government.  When at length they were driven from power in the executive and legislative branches of the government, he was chosen for their last stronghold, the Supreme Court.  By historic irony he administered the oath of office to his bitterest enemy, Thomas Jefferson; and, long after the author of the Declaration of Independence had retired to private life, the stern Chief Justice continued to announce the old Federalist principles from the Supreme Bench.

[Illustration:  JOHN MARSHALL]

=Marbury vs. Madison—­An Act of Congress Annulled.=—­He had been in his high office only two years when he laid down for the first time in the name of the entire Court the doctrine that the judges have the power to declare an act of Congress null and void when in their opinion it violates the Constitution.  This power was not expressly conferred on the Court.  Though many able men held that the judicial branch of the government enjoyed it, the principle was not positively established until 1803 when the case of Marbury vs. Madison was decided.  In rendering the opinion of the Court, Marshall cited no precedents.  He sought no foundations for his argument in ancient history.  He rested it on the general nature of the American system.  The Constitution, ran his reasoning, is the supreme law of the land; it limits and binds all who act in the name of the United States; it limits the powers of Congress and defines the rights of citizens.  If Congress can ignore its limitations and trespass upon the rights of citizens, Marshall argued, then the Constitution disappears and Congress is supreme.  Since, however, the Constitution is supreme and superior to Congress, it is the duty of judges, under their oath of office, to sustain it against measures which violate it.  Therefore, from the nature of the American constitutional system the courts must declare null and void all acts which are not authorized.  “A law repugnant to the Constitution,” he closed, “is void and the courts as well as other departments are bound by that instrument.”  From that day to this the practice of federal and state courts in passing upon the constitutionality of laws has remained unshaken.

This doctrine was received by Jefferson and many of his followers with consternation.  If the idea was sound, he exclaimed, “then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [legally, a suicide].  For, intending to establish three departments, cooerdinate and independent that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation....  The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the