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.

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 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.

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.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well

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

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.