o, Chief Justice Marshall, in the
great case of Marbury _vs_. Madison, set forth the view upon which our
government has ever since proceeded. He said:

"The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those
limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written.
To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limit
committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by
those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government
with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not
confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited
and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain
to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act
repugnant to it; or that the legislature may alter the constitution
by an ordinary act.

"Between these alternatives, there is no middle ground. The constitution
is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or
it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts,
is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. If the
former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act, contrary
to the constitution, is not law: if the latter part be true, then
written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to
limit a power, in its own nature, inimitable.

"Certainly, all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate
them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and
consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act
of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void. This theory
is essentially attached to a written constitution, and is, consequently,
to be considered by this court as one of the fundamental principles of
our society."

And of the same opinion was Montesquieu who gave the high authority of the
_Esprit des Lois_ to the declaration that

"There is no liberty if the power of judging be not separate from the
legislative and executive powers; were it joined with the legislative
the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary
control."

It is to be observed that the wit of man has not yet devised any better
way of reaching a just conclusion as to whether a statute does or does not
conflict with a constitutiona