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.
A lawyer is either a social engineer or he is a parasite on society.
If your life is Christ, then your death will be only more of Christ, forever. If your life is only Christlessness, then your death will be only more Christlessness, forever. That's not fundamentalism, that's the law of non-contradiction.
Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other peopleβs stuff.
We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.
I think of the security of cages. How violence, cruelty, oppression, become a kind of home, a familiar pattern, a cage, in which we know how to operate and define ourselves.
Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of human and animal species was entirely an illusion. The illusion could be explained by evolutionary processes that contained no such purpose at all. But the spread of ideas through imitation required the whole apparatus of human consciousness and intentionality
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.