An officer of the government is an officer of the law only when he is proceeding according to law. The moment he steps beyond the law, he, like other men, forfeits its protection, and may be resisted like any other trespasser. An unconstitutional statute is no law, in the view of the Constitution. It is void, and confers no authority on any one; and whoever attempts to execute it, does so at his peril. His holding a commission is no legal protection for him. If this doctrine were not true, and if (as the Supreme Court says in the Prigg case,) a man may, if he chooses, execute an authority granted by an unconstitutional law, Congress may authorize whomsoever they please, to ravish women, and butcher children, at pleasure, and the people have no right to resist them.
The constitution contemplates no such submission, on the part of the people, to the
It is no answer to this argument to say that if an unconstitutional act be passed.
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