The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level … - John Marshall

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Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.

John Marshall

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.

Alterable, Essence, Law, Mean, Ordinary, Say

Same Author Quotes

My gift of John Marshall to the people of the United States was the proudest act of my life. There is no act of my life on which I reflect with more pleasure. I have given to my country a judge equal to a Hole, Holt, or a Mansfield.

Country, Gift, Judging, Mansfield, Marshall, People

Whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the Constitution, is, at all times, a question of much delicacy, which out seldom, if ever, to be decided in the affirmative, in doubtful case. . . . But it is not on slight implication and vague conjecture that the legislature is to be pronounced to have transcended its powers, and its acts to be considered as void. The opposition between the Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other.

Incompatibility, Judging, Law, Powers, Strong, Vague

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.

Contemplate, Fundamentals, Government, Law, Repugnant, Void

The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.

Damned, Eye, Hours, Judicial, Mean, Two

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.

General, Government, Individual, Legislature, Peculiar