analogous to that which they occupy in countries where the sovereignty
is undivided; in other words, his efforts ought constantly to tend to
maintain the judicial power of the confederation as the representative
of the nation, and the justiciable party as the representative of an
individual interest.

Every government, whatever may be its constitution, requires the means
of constraining its subjects to discharge their obligations, and of
protecting its privileges from their assaults. As far as the direct
action of the Government on the community is concerned, the Constitution
of the United States contrived, by a master-stroke of policy, that
the federal courts, acting in the name of the laws, should only take
cognizance of parties in an individual capacity. For, as it had been
declared that the Union consisted of one and the same people within
the limits laid down by the Constitution, the inference was that the
Government created by this Constitution, and acting within these limits,
was invested with all the privileges of a national government, one of
the principal of which is the right of transmitting its injunctions
directly to the private citizen. When, for instance, the Union votes an
impost, it does not apply to the States for the levying of it, but to
every American citizen in proportion to his assessment. The Supreme
Court, which is empowered to enforce the execution of this law of the
Union, exerts its influence not upon a refractory State, but upon the
private taxpayer; and, like the judicial power of other nations, it is
opposed to the person of an individual. It is to be observed that the
Union chose its own antagonist; and as that antagonist is feeble, he is
naturally worsted.

But the difficulty increases when the proceedings are not brought
forward by but against the Union. The Constitution recognizes the
legislative power of the States; and a law so enacted may impair the
privileges of the Union, in which case a collision in unavoidable
between that body and the State which has passed the law: and it only
remains to select the least dangerous remedy, which is very clearly
deducible from the general principles I have before established. *k

[Footnote k: See Chapter VI. on "Judicial Power in America."]

It may be conceived that, in the case under consideration, the Union
might have used the State before a Federal court, which would have
annulled the act, and by this means it would have adopted a natur