ARTICLE VI.-MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS. Clause 1.-DEBTS. All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation. This clause was an express assumption of the debts incurred under the Articles of Confederation. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 50. Clause 2.-SUPREME LAW. This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. Supremacy of the Constitution The Constitution was formed mainly to secure union and harmony, and for this purpose it was necessary that in the sphere of action assigned to the National Government it should be supreme; it was intended to frame a paramount government, sovereign in its sphere, as distinguished from a league or compact. To this end it was necessary to make the Constitution the paramount law of the land. The Constitution is supreme over all the departments of the National Government and, to the extent of the powers delegated therein, over all who made themselves parties to it, States as well as persons. The Constitution, treaties, and general laws made by the General Government on the rights, duties, and subjects specially enumerated and confided to their jurisdiction are exclusive and supreme, as well by necessary implication as by express provision. Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 363. See also Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 517. Cl. 2.-Supreme Law-Constitution. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 578. New Jersey v. Wilson, 7 Cranch 164. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43. Von Hoffman v. Quincy, 4 Wall. 535. Taylor v. Taintor, 16 Wall. 366. Farmers' etc., Bank v. Dearing, 91 U. S. 29. Farrington v. Tennessee, 95 U. S. 685. Pensacola Tel. Co. v. Western Union, 96 U. S. 1. Pollard v. Kibbe, 14 Pet. 417. In all branches of Government, both State and National, the powers are limited and defined; but the limitations and implied prohibitions in the Constitution must not be extended so far as to destroy the necessary powers of the State or prevent their efficient exercise, the general principles in the Constitution being merely declaratory and directory and not intended to fetter and control. The Constitution can not become weakened by a par ticular course of inaction under it. Loan Assn. v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 663. Cooper v. Telfair, 4 Dall. 18. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan, etc., Co., 158 U. S. 629. This Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and no act of Congress is of any validity which does not rest on authority conferred by that instrument.1 U. S. v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 510. Where a State law is assailed as repugnant to the Constitution, and on its face such act is seemingly within the power of the State to adopt, but its necessary effect and operation is to usurp a power granted by the Constitution to the United States, it must follow, from the paramount nature of the Constitution, that the act is void. In such a case the result of the test of necessary operation and effect is to demonstrate the want of power, because of the controlling nature of the limitations imposed on the States by the Constitution. McCray v. U. S., 195 U. S. 60. Northern Securities Co. v. U. S., 193 U. S. 344. Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 398. Bank of Commerce v. New York, 2 Black 632. Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 381. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 405. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 210. It must always be borne in mind that the Constitution, laws, and treaties of the United States are as much a part of the law of every State as its own local laws and constitution. This is a fundamental principle in our system of complex national polity. Hauenstein v. Lynham, 100 U. S. 490. 1 See also "Power of U. S. Courts to Declare Acts of Congress Unconstitutional," p. 409; "Constitutional Questions," p. 421; and "Acts of Congress Declared Unconstitutional," p. 759. Cl. 2.-Supreme Law-Acts of Congress. The mode or manner in which the police power may be exercised to safeguard the public health and the public safety is within the discretion of the State, subject, so far as the Federal power is concerned, only to the condition that no rules prescribed by a State, nor any regulation adopted by a local governmental agent acting under the sanction of State legislation, shall contravene the Constitution of the United States or infringe any right granted or secured by that instrument. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 25. Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U. S. 556. Supremacy of Laws of the United States In General The laws of the United States are supreme within the meaning of this clause only when made in conformity with the Constitution, and an act of Congress repugnant to the Constitution is void. While the presumption is always in favor of the constitutionality of a legislative act, and the power to declare a statute void will never be exercised except in a very clear case, yet it is not only the right, but the duty, of the judiciary to pass upon the validity of statutes and to declare them void when their repugnancy to the Constitution is apparent. Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 176. See also Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 520. Chesapeake, etc., Tel. Co. v. Manning, 186 U. S. 245. Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 610. County of Livingston v. Darlington, 101 U. S. 410. Fairbank v. U. S., 181 U. S. 285. Mugler v. Kansas, 123 U. S. 661. Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393. Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45. Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 4 Wheat. 518. In every case the act of Congress or the treaty is supreme, and the law of the State, though enacted in the exercise of powers not controverted, must yield to it. Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 210. Territorial Laws An act of Congress undertaking to legislate for the District of Cl. 2.-Supreme Law-Acts of Congress. Supremacy of Acts of Congress Over State Laws In general. The United States is a Government with authority extending over the whole territory of the Union, acting upon the States and upon the people of the States. While it is limited in the number of its powers, so far as its sovereignty extends it is supreme. No State government can exclude it from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, obstruct its authorized officers against its will, or withhold from it, for a moment, the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has committed to it. Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U. S. 263. Waite v. Dowley, 94 U. S. 532. All constitutional laws are binding on the people in the new States and the old ones, whether they consent to be bound by them or not. Every constitutional act of Congress is passed by the will of the people of the United States, expressed through their representatives, on the subject matter of the enactment, and when so passed it becomes the supreme law of the land and operates by its own force on the subject matter in whatever State or Territory it may happen to be. The proposition, therefore, that such a law can not operate upon the subject matter of its enactment without the express consent of the people of a new State where it may happen to be contains its own refutation. Pollard v. Hagan, 3 How. 224. See also Pensacola Tel. Co. v. Western Union, 96 U. S. 9. Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wall. 611. Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 519. Repugnancy must be direct and positive.-A State statute although enacted in pursuance of a power not surrendered to the General Government, must in the execution of its provisions yield, in case of conflict, to a statute constitutionally enacted under authority conferred upon Congress; but it is not to be regarded as inconsistent with an act of Congress passed in the execution of a clear power under the Constitution, unless the repugnancy or conflict is so direct and positive that the two acts can not be reconciled or stand together. Missouri, etc., R. Co. v. Haber, 169 U. S. 623. Immunity from prosecution for testifying.-The immunity given by an act of Congress which provides that "no person shall be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any transaction, matter, or thing concerning which he may testify" is clearly intended to be general and to be applicable whenever and in whatever court such prosecution may be had, whether State or Federal. Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 608. |