It is the peculiar province of the legislature to prescribe general rules for the government of society; the application of those rules to individuals in society would seem to be the duty of other departments.

The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create.

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers.

The federal government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it . . . is now universally admitted.

A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.