ty, not defined or even enumerated in the Constitution, but
having their sanction in the free and enlightened conscience of just
men, and that no man can be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
except in conformity with these fundamental decencies of liberty. To
protect these even against the will of a majority, however large, the
judiciary was given unprecedented powers. It threw about the individual
the solemn circle of the law. It made the judiciary the final conscience
of the nation. Your nation cherishes the same primal verities of
liberty, but with you, the people in Parliament, is the final judge. We,
however, are not content that a majority of the Legislature shall
override inviolable individual rights, about which the judiciary is
empowered to throw the solemn circle of the law.

This august power has won the admiration of the world, and by many is
regarded as a novel contribution to the science of government. The idea,
however, was not wholly novel. As previously shown, four Chief Justices
of England had declared that an Act of Parliament, if against common
right and reason, could be treated as null and void; while in France the
power of the judiciary to refuse efficacy to a law, unless sanctioned by
the judiciary, had been the cause of a long struggle for at least three
centuries between the French monarch and the courts of France. However,
in England the doctrine of the common law yielded to the later doctrine
of the omnipotence of Parliament, while in France the revisory power of
the judiciary was terminated by the French Revolution.

The United States, however, embodied it in its form of government and
thus made the judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, the balance
wheel of the Constitution. Without such power the Constitution could
never have lasted, for neither executive officers nor legislatures are
good judges of the extent of their own powers.

Nothing more strikingly shows the spirit of unity which the Constitution
brought into being than the unbroken success with which the Supreme
Court has discharged this difficult and most delicate duty. The
President is the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Navy and can
call them to his aid. The legislature has almost unlimited power through
its control of the public purse. The States have their power reinforced
by armed forces, and some of them are as great in population and
resources as many of the nations of Europe. The Supreme Court, however,