Democracy in America — Volume 1Tocqueville, Alexis de
History
Democracy in America — Volume 1
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States -- Social conditions
The Constitution prohibits the States from making laws on the value and
circulation of money: If, notwithstanding this prohibition, a State
passes a law of this kind, with which the interested parties refuse to
comply because it is contrary to the Constitution, the case must come
before a Federal court, because it arises under the laws of the United
States. Again, if difficulties arise in the levying of import duties
which have been voted by Congress, the Federal court must decide the
case, because it arises under the interpretation of a law of the United
States.
This rule is in perfect accordance with the fundamental principles of
the Federal Constitution. The Union, as it was established in 1789,
possesses, it is true, a limited supremacy; but it was intended that
within its limits it should form one and the same people. *h Within
those limits the Union is sovereign. When this point is established and
admitted, the inference is easy; for if it be acknowledged that the
United States constitute one and the same people within the bounds
prescribed by their Constitution, it is impossible to refuse them the
rights which belong to other nations. But it has been allowed, from the
origin of society, that every nation has the right of deciding by its
own courts those questions which concern the execution of its own laws.
To this it is answered that the Union is in so singular a position that
in relation to some matters it constitutes a people, and that in
relation to all the rest it is a nonentity. But the inference to be
drawn is, that in the laws relating to these matters the Union
possesses all the rights of absolute sovereignty. The difficulty is to
know what these matters are; and when once it is resolved (and we have
shown how it was resolved, in speaking of the means of determining the
jurisdiction of the Federal courts) no further doubt can arise; for as
soon as it is established that a suit is Federal—that is to say, that
it belongs to the share of sovereignty reserved by the Constitution of
the Union—the natural consequence is that it should come within the
jurisdiction of a Federal court.
h
[ This principle was in some measure restricted by the introduction of
the several States as independent powers into the Senate, and by
allowing them to vote separately in the House of Representatives when
the President is elected by that body. But these are exceptions, and
the contrary principle is the rule.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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