hich slay legislation.
And if the voice of the Church was the voice of God, so the voice of
the Court is the voice of the American people as this is recorded in the
Constitution.

The Hildebrand of American constitutionalism is John Marshall. The
contest carried on by the greatest of the Chief Justices for the
principles today associated with his name is very like that waged by the
greatest of the Popes for the supremacy of the Papacy. Both fought
with intellectual weapons. Both addressed their appeal to the minds and
hearts of men. Both died before the triumph of their respective causes
and amid circumstances of great discouragement. Both worked through and
for great institutions which preceded them and which have survived them.
And, as the achievements of Hildebrand cannot be justly appreciated
without some knowledge of the ecclesiastical system which he did so
much to develop, neither can the career of John Marshall be understood
without some knowledge of the organization of the tribunal through which
he wrought and whose power he did so much to exalt. The first chapter in
the history of John Marshall and his influence upon the laws of the land
must therefore inevitably deal with the historical conditions underlying
the judicial system of which it is the capstone.

The vital defect of the system of government provided by the soon
obsolete Articles of Confederation lay in the fact that it operated not
upon the individual citizens of the United States but upon the States
in their corporate capacities. As a consequence the prescribed duties
of any law passed by Congress in pursuance of powers derived from the
Articles of Confederation could not be enforced. Theoretically, perhaps,
Congress had the right to coerce the States to perform their duties; at
any rate, a Congressional Committee headed by Madison so decided at
the very moment (1781) when the Articles were going into effect. But
practically such a course of coercion, requiring in the end the exercise
of military power, was out of the question. Whence were to come the
forces for military operations against recalcitrant States? From sister
States which had themselves neglected their constitutional duties on
various occasions? The history of the German Empire has demonstrated
that the principle of state coercion is entirely feasible when a
single powerful State dominates the rest of the confederation. But the
Confederation of 1781 possessed no such giant member; it