The German reader who hears of the Supreme Court sitting at the Capitol, must not turn back in his mind to the Imperial Court at Leipzig. The Supreme Court is by no means the sole court of highest instance, for the suits in single states which properly fall within the jurisdiction of a state can go no higher than the highest court of appeal of that state. The Supreme Court in Washington is the court of last instance for federal cases; but in order to disburden the judges in Washington, there are large classes of civil cases pertaining to the federal courts, which can be carried no higher than the federal court of appeals of a given circuit. Much more important than the cases in which the Supreme Court is really the court of highest instance for federal suits, are those others in which it is at once the court of first and last instance; these are the processes which the Constitution assigns immediately to the Supreme Court. They are chiefly suits in which a single state, or in which the United States is itself a party, for the Supreme Bench alone can settle disagreements between states and decide whether the federal or state laws conflict with the Constitution. In this sense the Supreme Court is higher than both President and Congress. If it decides that a treaty which the Executive has concluded, or a law which has been passed by the Legislative, violates the Constitution, then the doings of both Congress and the President are annulled. There is only one way by which a decision of the Supreme Court can be set aside—namely, by the vote of a three-fourths majority of all the states; that is, by an amendment of the Constitution. There are some instances of this in the history of the United States; but virtually the decision of the nine judges of the Supreme Court is the highest law of the land.
The Supreme Court has annulled Congressional measures twenty-one times and state statutes more than two hundred times, because these were at variance with the Constitution. Many of these have been cases of the greatest political importance, long and bitterly fought out in the legislatures, and followed with excitement by the public. The whole country has often been divided in its opinion on a legal question, and even the decision itself of the nine judges has sometimes been handed down with only a small majority. Nevertheless, for many years the country has every time submitted to the oracle of the Supreme Court, and considered the whole issue definitely closed.