84 Quotes by John Marshall

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.

The institution of Masonry ought to be abandoned as one capable of much evil, and incapable of producing any good which might not be affected by safe and open means.

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.

The most lively fancy aided by the strongest description cannot equal the reality of the opera.

Seldom has a battle, in which greater numbers were not engaged, been so important in its consequences as that of Cowpens.

No one imagines that a law professing to tax will be permitted to destroy.

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.

A constitution is framed for ages to come, and is designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.

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.