State legislature void because it departed from the State
Constitution, unless that Constitution in plain terms gave them
such a power. The Constitution of the United States did give it,
political though it was, to all judges (Art. XI, Sec. 2), and a
State statute which was contrary to that Constitution might
therefore properly be declared void by the courts.[Footnote:
Eakin _v._ Raub, 12 Sergeant and Rawle's Reports, 330.]
Later in his judicial career Gibson abandoned this position,
[Footnote: Norris _v._ Clymer, 2 Pennsylvania State Reports,
281.] and the ground taken by Marshall has been since 1845
universally accepted.

The last official attack upon it was made in 1831, at the time
when the feeling against protective tariffs was strong in the
South, and South Carolina was known to be meditating opposition
to their enforcement. The judiciary committee of the House of
Representatives reported a bill to repeal the section of the
Judiciary Act which gave the Supreme Court of the United States
the right to reverse judgments of State courts that it might deem
contrary to the Constitution of the United States. The report
said that such a grant was unwarranted by the Constitution and "a
much greater outrage upon the fundamental principles of
theoretical and practical liberty as established here than the
odious writ of _quo warranto_ as it was used in England by a
tyrannical king to destroy the right of corporations." The
House, however, rejected the bill by a very large majority.

A proper regard for the coordination of the departments of
government forbids courts to declare that a statute is
inconsistent with the Constitution unless the inconsistency is