Constitutional history -- United States -- Sources; Constitutional law -- United States
Had the Constitution been silent on this head, there can be no doubt
that all the particular powers requisite as means of executing the
general powers would have resulted to the government, by unavoidable
implication. No axiom is more clearly established in law, or in reason,
than that wherever the end is required, the means are authorized;
wherever a general power to do a thing is given, every particular power
necessary for doing it is included. Had this last method, therefore,
been pursued by the convention, every objection now urged against their
plan would remain in all its plausibility; and the real inconveniency
would be incurred of not removing a pretext which may be seized on
critical occasions for drawing into question the essential powers of the
Union.
If it be asked what is to be the consequence, in case the Congress
shall misconstrue this part of the Constitution, and exercise powers
not warranted by its true meaning, I answer, the same as if they should
misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them; as if the general
power had been reduced to particulars, and any one of these were to
be violated; the same, in short, as if the State legislatures should
violate the irrespective constitutional authorities. In the first
instance, the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive
and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the
legislative acts; and in the last resort a remedy must be obtained from
the people who can, by the election of more faithful representatives,
annul the acts of the usurpers. The truth is, that this ultimate redress
may be more confided in against unconstitutional acts of the federal
than of the State legislatures, for this plain reason, that as every
such act of the former will be an invasion of the rights of the latter,
these will be ever ready to mark the innovation, to sound the alarm to
the people, and to exert their local influence in effecting a change of
federal representatives. There being no such intermediate body between
the State legislatures and the people interested in watching the conduct
of the former, violations of the State constitutions are more likely to
remain unnoticed and unredressed.
2. "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,
any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary
notwithstanding."
The indiscreet zeal of the adversaries to the Constitution has betrayed
them into an attack on this part of it also, without which it would have
been evidently and radically defective. To be fully sensible of this,
we need only suppose for a moment that the supremacy of the State
constitutions had been left complete by a saving clause in their favor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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