Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

country will not be constantly kept in broils of a similar description, and have we no right to prevent them by removing the cause? The doctrine here put forth by the court would, we think, justify it.

In the case of Cohens vs. the State of Virginia, they speak of the power of the court, and the powers of the United States, on this wise:

“The use intended to be made of this exposition of the first part of the section, defining the extent of the judicial power, is not clearly understood. If the intention be merely to distinguish cases arising under the Constitution from those arising under a law, for the sake of precision in the application of this argument, these propositions will not be controverted. If it be to maintain a case arising under the Constitution, or a law, we think the construction too narrow. A case in law or equity consists of the right of the one party, as well as of the other, and may truly be said to arise under the Constitution, or a law of the United States, whenever its correct decision depends on the construction of either. Congress seems to have intended to give its own construction to this part of the Constitution in the twentyfifth section of the judiciary act; and we perceive no reason to depart from that construction.

"The jurisdiction of the court, then, being extended by the letter of the Constitution to all cases arising under it, or under the laws of the United States, it follows that those who would withdraw any case of this description from that jurisdiction must sustain the exemption they claim on the spirit and true meaning of the Constitution, which spirit and true meaning must be so apparent as to overrule the words which its framers have employed." "The American States, as well as the American

people, have believed a closer and firmer union to be essential to their liberty and to their happiness. They have been taught by experience that this union cannot exist without a government for the whole, and they have. been taught by the same experience that this government would be a mere shadow that must disappoint all their hopes, unless invested with large portions of that sovereignty which belongs to independent States. Under the influence of this opinion, and thus instructed by experience, the American people, in the convention of their respective States, adopted the present Constitution.

"If it could be doubted whether from its nature it were not supreme in all cases where it is empowered to act, that doubt would be removed by the declaration that this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby ; any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

"This is the authoritative language of the American people, and, if the gentleman please, of the American States. It marks, with lines too strong to be mistaken, the characteristic distinction between the government of the Union and those of the States. The general government, though limited as to its objects, is supreme with respect to those objects. This principle is a part of the Constitution; and if there be any who deny its necessity, none can deny its authority.

"To this supreme government ample powers are confided; and if it were possible to doubt the great purposes for which they were so confided, the people of the United States have declared that they are given in order to

form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure the domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity."

"With the ample powers confided to this supreme government, for these interesting purposes, are connected many express and important limitations on the sovereignty of the States, which are made for the same purposes. The powers of the Union, on the great subjects of war, peace, and commerce, and on many others, are in themselves limitations of the sovereignty of the States; but, in addition to these, the sovereignty of the States is surrendered, in many instances, when the surrender can only operate for the benefit of the people, and when, perhaps, no other power is conferred on congress than a conservative power to maintain the principles established in the Constitution. The maintenance of these principles in their purity, is certainly among the great duties of the government. One of the instruments by which this duty may be peaceably performed is the judi cial department. It is authorized to decide all cases, of every description, arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. From this general grant of jurisdiction no exception is made to those cases in which a State may be a party. When we consider the situation of the government, of the Union, and of the States, in relation to each other, the nature of our Constitution, the subordination of the State governments to that Constitution, the great purpose for which jurisdiction over all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States is confided to the judicial department, are we at liberty to insert in this general grant an exception of those cases in which a State may be a party? Will the spirit of the Constitution justify this attempt to control its words? We think it will not. We think a

case arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States is cognizable in the courts of the Union, whoever may be the parties to that case.

"Had any doubt existed with respect to the just construction of this part of the section, that doubt would have been removed by the enumeration of those cases to which the jurisdiction of the federal courts are extended in consequence of the character of the parties. In that enumeration we find 'controversies between two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State, between a State and citizens thereof, and between a State and foreign states, citizens or subjects.'

"One of the express objects for which the judicial department was established, is the decision of controversies between States, and between a State and individuals. The mere circumstance that a State is a party, gives jurisdiction to the court. How, then, can it be contended that the very same instrument, in the very same section, should be so construed as that this same circumstance should withdraw a case from the jurisdiction of the court, when the Constitution or laws of the United States are supposed to have been violated? The Constitution gave to every person having a claim upon a State a right to submit his case to the court of the nation. However unimportant his claim might be, however little the community might be interested in its decisions, the framers of our Constitution thought it necessary, for the purposes of justice, to provide a tribunal as superior to influence as possible, in which that claim might be decided. Can it be imagined that the same persons considered a case involving the Constitution of our country and the majesty of the laws, questions in which every American citizen must be deeply interested, as withdrawn from this tribunal because a State is a party? " 1

'Marshall on the Constitution, pp. 224—7.

After stating he considered that, as a "political axiom, the "judicial power of every well-regulated government must be coextensive with the legislature, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws," he says,—

"There is certainly nothing in the circumstances under which our Constitution was formed, nothing in the history of the times, which would justify the opinion that the confidence reposed in the States was so implicit as to leave in them and their tribunals the power of resisting or defeating, in the form of law, the legitimate measures of the Union. The requisitions of congress under the Confederation, were as constitutionally obligatory as the laws enacted by the present congress. That they were as universally disregarded is a fact of universal notoriety."

And, again,

"If jurisdiction depended entirely on the character of the parties, and was not given when the parties have an original right to come into court, that part of the second section of the third article which extends the judicial power to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States would be mere surplusage. It is to give jurisdiction when the character of the parties would not give it, that this very important part of the clause was inserted. It may be true, that the partiality of the State tribunals, in ordinary controversies between a State and its citizens, was not apprehended, and therefore the judicial power of the Union was not extended to such cases; but this was not the sole nor the greatest object for which this department was created. A more

' Marshall on the Constitution, p. 230.

« AnteriorContinuar »