"Those then who controvert the principle that the Constitution is to be considered, in court as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes on the Constitution, and see only law.

"This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written Constitutions . . . It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breath, which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure.

"That it thus reduces to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions--a written Constitution--would of itself be sufficient, in America, where written Constitutions have been viewed with so much reverence, for rejecting the Constitution."

"All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution, are null and void."--Chief Justice Marshall, U.S. Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison, 5, U.S. (Cranch)