Cohen Vs Virginia
is Cohens vs. Virginia, in which the question arose as to the right of the
Supreme Court to exercise its appellate jurisdiction over the judgment of a
state court involving the validity of state legislation. The contention of the
counsel for the state struck at the very root of the judicial system of the
Union, with its authority to review state decisions which involved the binding
effect of the Federal Constitution and laws: and so to the discussion of this
fundamental question Marshall brought his heaviest artillery. In a series of
powerful paragraphs he proclaimed the principle of nationalism and the existence
of a real union resting on the will and determination of the people: “That the
United States,” he said, “from, for many, and for most important purposes, a
single nation, has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people.
In making
peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same
people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government
which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these
respects, is the government of the Union. It is their government, and in that
character they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects, and to
many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes, her government is complete;
to all these objects, it is competent.” These words give us some idea of the
simplicity of the style, the evidence of power and confidence, the eloquence
which can raise a judicial opinion into the realm of literature. This decision,
emphatically maintaining the appellate authority of the Court and the supremacy
of the national law when the law is consonant with the Constitution, left no
further ground for legal discussion, though the men of Virginia, fretting under
the authority of the Court, poured out their wrath in many word
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