John Marshall

the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle

who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the constitution, and see only the law. This doctrine …

This is of the very essence of judicial duty.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.

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 …

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.

every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress.

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.

The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.

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

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

It is the peculiar province of the legislature to prescribe general rules for the government of society; the application of those rules to individuals in society would seem to be the duty of other departments.

We have no more right to decline the exercise of jurisdiction which is given, than to usurp that which is not given. The one or the other would be treason to the constitution.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

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