Constitution clearly intended that such a power should be exercised by
the Supreme Court.[2] Moreover, a somewhat similar power appears to have
been exercised long before in England,[3] though it gave place later to
the present doctrine of the legal omnipotence of Parliament.

[Footnote 1: See Bryce: "The American Commonwealth," Vol. I, p. 250.]

[Footnote 2: See e.g., "Federalist," No. LXXVIII.]

[Footnote 3: See opinion of Lord Coke in Bonham's Case, 8 Coke's
Reports, 118, decided in 1610.]

On the side of reason and logic, the argument in favor of the power
formulated more than a century ago by Chief Justice Marshall has never
been adequately answered and is generally accepted as final. He said:[1]

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 limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended
to be restrained?... 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
illimitable.