Cohens v. Virginia

6 Wheat. (19 U.S.) 264 (1821), argued 13 Feb. 1821, decided 3 Mar. 1821 by vote of 6 to 0; Marshall for the Court. Philip and Mendes Cohen sold lottery tickets in Virginia under the authority of an act of Congress for the District of Columbia. The Cohens appealed their conviction for violating the state statute, which had banned such lotteries. Virginia asserted that the Eleventh Amendment precluded the Supreme Court from hearing the case and that section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not apply.

The Cohens case reflected the effort by several states, including Virginia, to challenge John Marshall's opinion in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819). Marshall seized on Cohens, which some historians believed was contrived, to reemphasize federal judicial power. He asserted that the Constitution made the Union supreme and that the federal judiciary was the ultimate constitutional arbiter. While the states could interpret their own laws, any federal question must ultimately be resolved, as section 25 provided, only by the federal courts. The Eleventh Amendment did not prevent federal courts from deciding properly a legitimate federal question, even where a state was the appellee.

Marshall avoided Virginia noncompliance by holding that the lottery statute applied only in the District of Columbia, but Virginia states' rights advocates nonetheless blasted his judicial nationalism.

See also Judicial Power and Jurisdiction.

— Kermit L. Hall

• 6 Wheat. 264 (1821)
• Vote: 6–0
• For the Court: Marshall

Two brothers, Philip and Mendes Cohen, were charged with violating a Virginia law by selling lottery tickets within the state. They were tried, convicted, and fined by a local court in Norfolk, Virginia. The Cohens appealed the Virginia court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court under Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which provides for review by the U.S. Supreme Court of decisions by state courts that involve issues of constitutional or federal law.

The Cohen brothers said that their lottery had been incorporated in Washington, D.C., according to terms of an act of Congress. Therefore they concluded that their lottery was conducted properly under federal law and could not be restricted by a state law.

The Issue

Attorneys for the state of Virginia argued that according to the 11th Amendment to the Constitution, the U.S. Supreme Court could not have jurisdiction in this case. Furthermore, they held that there were no words in the U.S. Constitution that “set up the federal judiciary above the state judiciary.” Therefore, they said, Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 could not be used to justify jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in this case. The issue was: Does the U.S. Supreme Court have jurisdiction in cases originating in state courts when these cases involve questions about federal law and the U.S. Constitution? Is the U.S. Supreme Court the final authority in such cases? Did the state of Virginia wrongfully convict the Cohens for violating a state law against lotteries?

Opinion of the Court

Chief Justice John Marshall delivered the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court, which upheld the jurisdiction and authority of the U.S. Supreme Court to review decisions of state courts when they involve issues about federal law or the U.S. Constitution. He wrote eloquently in support of Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789 and reaffirmed the Court's decision (written by Justice Joseph Story) in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee (1816).

Marshall also effectively dismissed Virginia's claim that the 11th Amendment precluded the Supreme Court from having jurisdiction in this case. Finally, after establishing the Court's authority and jurisdiction in this case, Marshall ruled against the Cohen brothers and upheld their conviction under Virginia state law.

Significance

Chief Justice Marshall asserted the supremacy of the U.S. Constitution and federal law over state laws that conflicted with them. And he argued compellingly for the ultimate authority of the U.S. Supreme Court over state courts on all questions involving the U.S. Constitution and federal law. These views are no longer controversial, but in Marshall's time they were burning constitutional issues. The chief justice, however, framed and responded to these issues in a timeless fashion, and his decision undergirds our contemporary conceptions of federal-state relations.

See also Federalism; Judicial review; Jurisdiction; Martin v. Hunter's Lessee

Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheaton 264 (1821). The Cohens had been convicted of selling lottery tickets in Virginia, a practice prohibited by state law but allowed under federal law in the District of Columbia. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the state asserted its legal sovereignty and denied the federal court's right of review. Invoking the doctrine of national supremacy, Chief Justice John Marshall upheld its appellate jurisdiction over state court judgments in cases where the conviction violated some right under the Constitution or federal laws. This was one of Chief Justice John Marshall's most influential opinions, establishing national authority over the states.

Bibliography

Hall, Kermit L. The Supreme Court and Judicial Review in American History. Washington, D.C.: American Historical Association, 1985.

Luce, W. Ray. Cohens v. Virginia (1821): The Supreme Court and State Rights. New York: Garland, 1990.

—Charles Fairman/A. R.

by John Marshall, 1821

Chief Justice John Marshall was a strong nationalist, a number of whose decisions helped establish the authority of the federal government at the expense of the states. He thought that the Constitution should be liberally interpreted, even though its actual provisions for a national government were both limited and specific. The case of Cohens v. Virginia arose when two men were convicted under a state law for selling tickets in a national lottery permitted by federal law. The issues before the Supreme Court were basically two: the supremacy of federal law over a state law; and the appellate jurisdiction of the Court in a case where the parties were a state and citizens of that state. Marshall's decision of February 1821, reprinted in part below, was based largely on the Eleventh Amendment and Section 25 of the Judiciary Act of 1789.

The general government, though limited as to its objects, is supreme with respect to those objects. This principle is a part of the Constitution; and if there be any who deny its necessity, none can deny its authority.

To this supreme government, ample powers are confided; and if it were possible to doubt the great purposes for which they were so confided, the people of the United States have declared that they are given "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity." With the ample powers confided to this supreme government, for these interesting purposes, are connected many express and important limitations on the sovereignty of the states which are made for the same purposes. The powers of the Union, on the great subjects of war, peace, and commerce, and on many others, are in themselves limitations of the sovereignty of the states; but, in addition to these, the sovereignty of the states is surrendered, in many instances, where the surrender can only operate to the benefit of the people, and where, perhaps, no other power is conferred on Congress than a conservative power to maintain the principles established in the Constitution. The maintenance of these principles in their purity is certainly among the great duties of the government.

One of the instruments by which this duty may be peaceably performed is the Judicial Department. It is authorized to decide all cases of every description arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States. From this general grant of jurisdiction, no exception is made of those cases in which a state may be a party. When we consider the situation of the government of the Union and of a state, in relation to each other; the nature of our Constitution; the subordination of the state governments to that Constitution; the great purpose for which jurisdiction over all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States is confided to the Judicial Department, are we at liberty to insert in this general grant an exception of those cases in which a state may be a party? Will the spirit of the Constitution justify this attempt to control its words? We think it will not. We think a case arising under the Constitution or laws of the United States is cognizable in the courts of the Union, whoever may be the parties to that case. ...

The Constitution gave to every person having a claim upon a state a right to submit his case to the Court of the nation. However unimportant his claim might be, however little the community might be interested in its decision, the framers of our Constitution thought it necessary, for the purposes of justice, to provide a tribunal as superior to influence as possible in which that claim might be decided. ... The judicial power of every well-constituted government must be coextensive with the legislative, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws. ...

In many states, the judges are dependent for office and for salary on the will of the legislature. The Constitution of the United States furnishes no security against the universal adoption of this principle. When we observe the importance which that Constitution attaches to the independence of judges, we are the less inclined to suppose that it can have intended to leave these constitutional questions to tribunals where this independence may not exist, in all cases where a state shall prosecute an individual who claims the protection of an act of Congress. These prosecutions may take place even without a legislative act. A person making a seizure under an act of Congress may be indicted as a trespasser if force has been employed, and of this a jury may judge. How extensive may be the mischief if the first decisions in such cases should be final! ...

A constitution is framed for ages to come, and is designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it. Its course cannot always be tranquil. It is exposed to storms and tempests, and its framers must be unwise statesmen indeed if they have not provided it, so far as its nature will permit, with the means of self-preservation from the perils it may be destined to encounter. No government ought to be so defective in its organization as not to contain within itself the means of securing the execution of its own laws against other dangers than those which occur every day. Courts of justice are the means most usually employed; and it is reasonable to expect that a government should repose on its own courts rather than on others. ...

It is very true that whenever hostility to the existing system shall become universal, it will be also irresistible. The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their will, and lives only by their will. But this supreme and irresistible power to make or to unmake resides only in the whole body of the people, not in any subdivision of them. The attempt of any of the parts to exercise it is usurpation and ought to be repelled by those to whom the people have delegated their power of repelling it.

The acknowledged inability of the government, then, to sustain itself against the public will and, by force or otherwise, to control the whole nation is no sound argument in support of its constitutional inability to preserve itself against a section of the nation acting in opposition to the general will. ...

That the United States form, for many and for most important purposes, a single nation has not yet been denied. In war, we are one people. In making peace, we are one people. In all commercial regulations, we are one and the same people. In many other respects, the American people are one; and the government which is alone capable of controlling and managing their interests in all these respects is the government of the Union. It is their government, and, in that character, they have no other. America has chosen to be, in many respects and to many purposes, a nation; and for all these purposes her government is complete; to all these objects, it is competent. The people have declared that in the exercise of all powers given for these objects it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory. The constitution and laws of a state, so far as they are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void. These states are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire - for some purposes sovereign, for some purposes subordinate.

In a government so constituted, is it unreasonable that the judicial power should be competent to give efficacy to the constitutional laws of the legislature? That department can decide on the validity of the Constitution or law of a state if it be repugnant to the Constitution or to a law of the United States. Is it unreasonable that it should also be empowered to decide on the judgment of a state tribunal enforcing such unconstitutional law? Is it so very unreasonable as to furnish a justification for controlling the words of the Constitution?

We think it is not. We think that in a government, acknowledgedly supreme, with respect to objects of vital interest to the nation, there is nothing inconsistent with sound reason, nothing incompatible with the nature of government, in making all its departments supreme, so far as respects those objects and so far as is necessary to their attainment. The exercise of the appellate power over those judgments of the state tribunals which may contravene the Constitution or laws of the United States is, we believe, essential to the attainment of those objects.

Cohens v. Virginia
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 3, 1821
Full case name	Cohens v. Virginia
Citations	19 U.S. 264 (more)
Holding
State laws in opposition to national laws are void. The U.S. Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction for any U.S. case and final say.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Marshall Associate Justices Bushrod Washington · William Johnson Henry B. Livingston · Thomas Todd Gabriel Duvall · Joseph Story
Case opinions

Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821), was a United States Supreme Court decision most noted for John Marshall and the Court's assertion of its power to review state supreme court decisions in criminal law matters when they claim their Constitutional rights have been violated. The Court had previously asserted a similar jurisdiction over civil cases in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 14 U.S. 304 (1816). An act of the United States Congress authorized the operation of a lottery in the District of Columbia. The Cohen brothers proceeded to sell D.C. lottery tickets in the Commonwealth of Virginia, violating state law. State authorities tried and convicted the Cohens, and then declared themselves to be the final arbiters of disputes between the states and the national government. They were fined $100. In this case, the Cohens were prosecuted successfully by the state of Virginia for selling lottery tickets from the District of Columbia in Virginia, thereby violating Virginia state law. The Supreme Court upheld their convictions. The larger issue the court dealt with in making their decision was that of reviewing state court cases. The Supreme Court claimed full appellate jurisdiction over any case tried before a state court. Virginia, however, decided that this was unacceptable and declared the decision the Supreme Court made null and void, even though it had upheld the previous conviction, because Virginia felt the ruling limited states' rights.

References

• Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer Of A Nation, New York: Henry Holt & Company, 1996.

External links

• Text of Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. 264 (1821) is available from:  · Enfacto · Findlaw · LII

• Oyez - Cohens v. Virginia

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