In Federalist No. 33, Alexander Hamilton writes about the supremacy clause that federal laws must, by definition, be a top priority. If laws do not operate from this position, then they are worthless, declaring that “a law in the proper sense of the word includes supremacy. It is a rule to which those to whom it is prescribed are bound. This stems from all political associations. When individuals enter a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their behavior. When a number of political societies become part of a larger political society, the laws which it may enact by virtue of the powers conferred on it by its constitution must necessarily prevail over those societies and the individuals who compose them. In Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U.S. 497 (1956), the Supreme Court struck down the Pennsylvania Sedition Act, which made promoting the forcible overthrow of the federal government a crime under Pennsylvania law. The Supreme Court has held that if the federal interest is sufficiently dominant in an area of law, it must be presumed that federal law precludes the application of state laws on the same subject; and a state law cannot be declared aid if the state law goes beyond what Congress has deemed appropriate. First, the primacy clause contains the most explicit references in the Constitution to what jurists call “judicial review,” that is, the idea that even properly enacted laws do not contain rules allowing the courts to adjudicate to the extent that laws are unconstitutional. Some scholars say that the reference of the supremacy clause to “laws of the United States to be made for [the Constitution]” itself implies this idea; In their view, a federal law is not “made in pursuance of [the Constitution]” unless the Constitution actually authorizes Congress to do so.
Other scholars say that this term simply refers to the legislative process described in section 1 and that poorly enacted federal laws that are constitutionally consistent are different from properly enacted federal laws that are not. But no matter how one analyzes this specific phrase, the supremacy clause undoubtedly describes the Constitution as a “law” of the kind that courts apply. This is a pillar of the argument for judicial review. In addition, the supremacy clause explicitly states that the Constitution binds the judges of each state, regardless of conflicting state laws. Some of the issues raised by the tension between these two visions have been resolved. It is now decided that the U.S. Supreme Court has the power to overturn state court decisions in appropriate cases, and that state courts must accept the U.S. Supreme Court`s interpretation of the Constitution and federal law. It`s clear that states can`t strike down federal laws — though constitutional amendments giving them such powers have been proposed. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay laid out an eloquent defense of the new Constitution in the so-called Federalist Papers. The 85 articles that make up the Federalist Papers were published anonymously in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet as Publius between October 1787 and August 1788, and are to this day an invaluable source for understanding some of the authors` intentions for the Constitution.
The best-known articles are No. 10, which warns of the dangers of factions and advocates a great republic, and No. 51, which explains the structure of the constitution, its separation of powers and how it protects the rights of the people. “This conclusion in no way implies a superiority of the judiciary over the legislative power. It only assumed that the power of the people was superior to both; and that if the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, is contrary to the will of the people proclaimed in the Constitution, judges should be governed by the Constitution and not by the former. They should regulate their decisions by basic laws and not by non-fundamental ones. Under the supremacy clause, the “supreme law of the land” also includes federal laws enacted by Congress. Within the limits of the powers that Congress receives from other parts of the Constitution, Congress may set rules of decision that U.S. courts must apply, even if state law purports to provide conflicting rules. Congress also has at least the power to completely remove or restrict certain matters of state law that state law may validly say about it. As long as directives issued by Congress are actually authorized by the Constitution, they take precedence over both ordinary laws and each state`s Constitution.
(During the ratification phase, anti-federalists objected to federal laws and treaties taking precedence over certain aspects of each state`s Constitution and Bill of Rights. But while this feature of the precedence clause has been controversial, it is clear.) Essentially, it is a conflict-of-laws rule that states that certain federal laws take precedence over state laws that conflict with federal law, but when federal law conflicts with the Constitution, that law is null and void. In this regard, the primacy clause follows the example of Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation, which provided that “every state shall conform to the decision of the United States in Congress convened on all matters referred to it by this Confederacy.” [3] As a constitutional provision proclaiming the primacy of federal law, the primacy clause assumes the underlying primacy of federal power only if that power is expressed in the Constitution itself. [4] No matter what the federal or state governments want to do, they must respect the limits of the constitution. This makes the primacy clause the cornerstone of the entire American political structure. [5] [6] In this case, the court had to decide whether an act of Congress or the Constitution was the supreme law of the land. The Judicial Act of 1789 gave the Supreme Court original jurisdiction to issue writs of mandamus (regulations that require government officials to act in accordance with the law). A lawsuit was filed under the Act, but the Supreme Court held that the Constitution did not allow the court to have original jurisdiction over the matter. Since Article VI of the Constitution establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, the Court ruled that an act of Congress that violated the Constitution could not be upheld.
In subsequent cases, the court also established its power to sweep away state laws deemed unconstitutional. The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. Endowed with the sovereign authority of the people by the creators and the consent of state legislators, it is the source of all governmental powers and also provides significant restrictions on government that protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land in the United States. Learn more about our founding document. While I am correct about the pre-emption test of the priority clause, in some cases, the application of this test requires the courts to interpret the relevant federal statutes in order to identify all the statutes that establish those statutes. This is a more controversial project than non-lawyers might assume. Federal laws are often understood to imply certain things that they do not say at first glance, and legal guidelines that are implicitly established may be just as valid as other legal guidelines.
