532
Interpreting and Preserving the Constitution
necessity of uniformity of decisions throughout the whole United States,
upon all subjects within the purview of the Constitution. Judges of equal
learning and integrity, in different States, might differently interpret a
statute, or a treaty of the United States, or even the Constitution itself. If
there were no revising authority to control these jarring and discordant
judgments, and harmonize them into uniformity, the laws, the treaties,
and the Constitution of the United States would be different in different
States, and might perhaps never have precisely the same construction,
obligation, or efficacy, in any two States. The public mischiefs that would
attend such a state of things would be truly deplorable; and it cannot be
believed that they could have escaped the enlightened convention which
formed the Constitution. What, indeed, might then have been only prophecy has now become fact; and the appellate jurisdiction must continue to
be the only adequate remedy for such evils. . . .
It is the opinion of the whole court, that the judgment of the Court of
Appeals of Virginia, rendered on the mandate in this cause, be reversed,
and the judgment of the District Court, held at Winchester, be, and the
same is hereby affirmed.
Mr. Justice Johnson delivered a concurring opinion.