John Marshall Quotes

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is."

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

The Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.

A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law.

The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.

...the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

In a free government almost all other rights would become worthless if the government possessed power over the private fortune of every citizen.