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

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.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.

A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

No principle of general law is more universally acknowledged, than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights. It results from this equality, that no one can rightfully impose a rule on another....As no nation can prescribe a rule for others, none can make a law of nations.

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

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