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JAMES THOMPSON CALLENDER. 871

The effects of the exercise of this power by petit jurors
may be readily conceived. It appears to me that the right
now claimed has a direct tendency to dissolve the Union of
the United States, on which, under Divine Providence, our
political safety, happiness and prosperity depend.

No citizen of knowledge and information, unless under the
infinence of passion or prejudice, will ‘believe, without very
strong and indubiteble proof, that Congress will, intention-
ally, make any law in violation of the Federal Constitution,
and their sacred trust. I admit that the Constitution con-
templates that Congress may, from inattention or error in
judgment, pass a law prohibited by the Constitution; and,
therefore, it has provided a peaceable, safe and adequate
remedy. If such a case should happen, the mode of redress
is pointed out in the Constitution, and no other mode can be
adopted without a manifest infraction of it.

Every man must admit that the power of deciding the con-
stitutionality of any law of the United States, or of any par-
ticular state, is one of the greatest and most important pow-
ers the people could grant.

Such power is restrictive of the legislative power of the
Union, and also of the several states; not absolute and un-
limited, but confined to such cases only where the law in
question shall clearly appear to have been prohibited by the
Federal Constitution, and not in any doubtful ease. On re-
ferring to the ninth section of the first article of the Consti-
tution, there may be seen many restrictions imposed on the
powers of the national legislature, and also on the powers of
the several state legislatures. Among the special exeeptions
to their authority, is the power to make ex post facto laws, ta
lay any capitation, or other direct tax, unless in proportion
to the census; to lay any tax or duty on articles exported
from any state, ete.

It should be remembered that the judicial power of the
United States is co-existent, co-extensive, and co-ordinate
with, and altogether independent of, the Federal legislature,
or the executive. By the sixth article of the Constitution,

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