John Marshall Quotes

Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.

To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well

A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will.

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

What are the maxims of Democracy? A strict observance of justice and public faith, and a steady adherence to virtue.

A constitution is framed for ages to come, and is designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.

The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.

I fear we may live to see another revolution.

The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

What is it that makes us trust our judges? Their independence in office and manner of appointment.

A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.

The government of the Union, then, ... is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit.

In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.

The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal discretion, a discretion to be exercised in discerning the course prescribed by law; and, when that is discerned, it is the duty of the Court to follow it. Judicial power is never exericised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Legislature; or, in other words, to the will of the law.

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers.

The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States and compounding the American people into one common mass.

The federal government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it . . . is now universally admitted.

No one imagines that a law professing to tax will be permitted to destroy.

The particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.