No one imagines that a law professing to tax will be permitted to destroy.

A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States and compounding the American people into one common mass.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.

The French Revolution will be found to have had great influence on the strength of parties, and on the subsequent political transactions of the United States.