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Interpreting and Preserving the Constitution
should exercise appellate jurisdiction over State courts. It did not follow
from this, however, that the Supreme Court was prohibited from reviewing State court decisions. This is so, explained Story, because the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme is not spelled out in the Constitution for
any class of cases, and is left solely to the discretion of Congress. Article
III of the Constitution provides that ‘‘the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under
such regulations as the Congress shall make.’’ The Constitution, in other
words, gives Congress complete authority to establish and regulate the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. If the appellate power of the Supreme Court did not extend to cases decided in the State courts which
were inconsistent with the Constitution or which challenged the validity
of a Federal law or treaty, then Federal supremacy would be in jeopardy.
It would also be impossible for the Supreme Court to carry out its function
of protecting the supremacy of the Constitution and all Federal laws and
treaties if it could not review these kinds of State court decisions. Accordingly, Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 was constitutional.
Very early in our history, it may thus be seen, judicial review of acts of
Congress and judicial review of State court decisions became fixed principles of constitutional construction in the Supreme Court. Although the
former rested on deductive reasoning and was understood as an inherent
power implicit in the Constitution itself, and the latter was based on statute, both forms of judicial review drew their inspiration and legitimacy
from the Supremacy Clause. That the Supreme Court also has the power
to decide whether a State constitutional provision, law, or municipal ordinance conforms to the Constitution has never been seriously questioned. In Fletcher v. Peck (1810), the Supreme Court for the first time in
its history held a State law void because it conflicted with a provision of
the Constitution—the Contract Clause in Article I, Section 10. Previously,
State laws had been held unconstitutional because they conflicted with
Federal laws or treaties.
Under what is called the Doctrine of Preemption—a rule of interpretation that has been applied with increasing frequency in recent years
and has been much criticized—the Court has also voided State laws not
because they directly contravene a Federal law, but on the ground that