The agency by which, under our system of government, observance of constitutional limitation is enforced is the judicial power. The constitution provides that "This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." Under this provision an enactment by Congress not made in pursuance of the constitution, or an enactment of a state contrary to the constitution, is not a law. Such an enactment should strictly have no more legal effect than the resolution of any private debating society. The constitution also provides that the judicial power of the United States shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the constitution and laws of the United States. Whenever, therefore, in a case before a Federal court rights are asserted under or against some law which is claimed to violate some limitation of the constitution, the court is obliged to say whether the law does violate the constitution or not, because if it does not violate the constitution the court must give effect to it as law, while if it does violate the constitution it is no law at all and the court is not at liberty to give effect to it. The courts do not render decisions like imperial rescripts declaring laws valid or invalid. They merely render judgment on the rights of the litigants in particular cases, and in arriving at their judgment they refuse to give effect to statutes which they find clearly not to be made in pursuance of the constitution and therefore to be no laws at all. Their judgments are technically binding only in the particular case decided, but the knowledge that the court of last resort has reached such a conclusion concerning a statute, and that a similar conclusion would undoubtedly be reached in every case of an attempt to found rights upon the same statute, leads to a general acceptance of the invalidity of the statute.