Note 268 — ARTICLE III (continued 2)

In this connection Justice Patterson's jury charge in Van Horne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 308 (1795), is of significance for its discussion of the relation of the Constitution, the legislature and the courts. A constitution, he said, "is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it." Legislatures are the creatures of the Constitution to which they owe their existence and powers, and in case of conflict between a legislative act and the Constitution it is the duty of the courts to hold it void. In accordance with these doctrines fortified by natural law concepts, the circuit court invalidated a Pennsylvania statute as being in conflict with the federal and State Constitutions as a violation of the inalienable rights of property. In 1799 the federal circuit court in North Carolina, over which Chief Justice Marshall presided, invalidated an act of North Carolina as a violation of the contract clause and the separation of powers in Ogden v. Witherspoon, 18 Fed. Cas. No. 10,461 (1802). The reliance on general principles and natural rights continued in Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cr. 87, 139 (1810) where the Supreme Court invalidated an act of the Georgia legislature revoking an earlier land grant as a violation either of the "general principles which are common to our free institutions," or of the contract clause.