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from the judge. To this extraordinary assertion I answer that the words of the
Constitution admit of no such construction. The expression being that the judge
shall hold his office during good behaviour, necessarily implies and secures a union
of the office and the officer, so long as the officer shall behave well; and a removal
of the office from the judge destroys as effectually this union as the removal of the
judge from the office could do. ... If constructions of this kind can be admitted,
there is not a crime which was ever perpetrated by man which cannot be justified.
Sir, upon this principle, although you may not kill by thrusting a dagger into the
breast of your neighbor, yet you may compel your neighbor to kill himself by
forcing him upon the dagger; you shall not murder by destroying the life of a man,
but you may confine your enemy in prison, and leave him without food to starve and
to die. These may be good distinctions in the new system of philosophy, but they
can never be admitted in the old school. .
. .
" The power given to the courts to pronounce on the constitutionality of laws
would be entirely defeated in those times when the exercise of that power becomes
most necessary, if the judges are not placed beyond the power of the Legislature.
The idea of giving this power to the courts, and at the same time of leaving the
courts at the mercy of that department over which the power is to be exercised, is
rather too absurd for gentlemen even in these days of extravagance ; and gentlemen
aware of this have had the confidence to deny that this power resides in the
courts. .
. .
" Sir, if there is no power to check the usurpations of the Legislature, the inev-
itable consequence must be that the Congress of the United States becomes truly
omnipotent. All power must be concentrated here, before which every department
and all State-authorities must fall prostrate. Admit this principle and nothing can
resist the attacks of your national laws upon our State-sovereignties. Here is an end
of your Federal government. A consolidation of the States is the immediate effect,
and in a few short years these sovereignties will not even obtain the name. .
. .
" I should now close the observations which I had to submit to the Committee
upon this interesting question, had not the gentlemen on the other side of the House
thought proper to involve in this debate a discussion of several topics not necessarily
connected with the subject . . . and, although I cannot see their application, yet
I am not disposed to set up my discernment as the standard of infallibility, and shall
therefore now pay due respect to the path which these gentlemen have marked
out. .
.
" The gentleman begins his remarks by saying that two parties have existed in
this country from the commencement of the present Government :
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one what the