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.

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.

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.

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 law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

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.

When a law is in its nature a contract, when absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights.