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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the supremacy of the constitution over legislative acts.
John Marshall argues that written constitutions are designed to establish the fundamental laws of a nation. Any legislative action that contradicts the constitution is considered invalid, reinforcing the idea that the constitution is the highest legal authority within a government structure.
In practice
Citing this quote in a discussion about constitutional law during a legal seminar.
The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.
If the agency of the mother in forming the character of her children is, in truth, so considerable, as I think it - if she does so much toward making her son what she would wish him to be - how essential is it that she should be fitted for the beneficial performance of these important duties.
The constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it.
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.
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.
I don't care whether animals are capable of thinking; all I care about is that they are capable of suffering!
Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man's religion and don't let anybody ever tell you that it's white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world.
How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.
Mythological symbols touch and exhilarate centers of life beyond the reach of vocabularies of reason and coercion.
There is no slave but the creature that wills against its Creator.
Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits.
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