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.
Interpretation
The federal government has only the powers explicitly granted to it by the Constitution.
John Marshall emphasizes that the federal government operates under the principle of enumerated powers, meaning it can only exercise those powers that have been specifically granted to it, as outlined in the Constitution. This foundational concept limits governmental authority and is central to the framework of American governance, ensuring a balance of power and protecting individual freedoms.
In practice
In a debate about federal authority, one might reference this quote to highlight the limits of governmental power.
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 government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.
The future is a convenient place for dreams.
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
The tribal community lived in the totality of circular time; the farmers of God's universe understood before and after; workers of the clockwork universe lived by the tick; and we creatures of the digital era must relate to the pulse.
The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.
The story of each stone leads back to a mountain.
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
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