When a law is in its nature a contract, when absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repeal of the law cannot divest those rights. The people can act only by their agents and, within the powers conferred upon them, their acts must be considered as the acts of the people.

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

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 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.

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

To obtain a just compromise, concession must not only mutual-it must be equal also....There can be no hope that either will yield more than it gets in return.

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.

My gift of John Marshall to the people of the United States was the proudest act of my life. There is no act of my life on which I reflect with more pleasure. I have given to my country a judge equal to a Hole, Holt, or a Mansfield.

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.

The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create....