2. What is the extent of my official power to collect the duties on imports at a port where the revenue laws are resisted by a force which drives the collector from the custom house?
3. What right have I to defend the public property (for instance, a fort, arsenal and navy yard), in case it should be assaulted?
4. What are the legal means at my disposal for executing those laws of the United States which are usually administered through the courts and their officers?
5. Can a military force be used for any purpose whatever under the Acts of 1795 and 1807, within the limits of a State where there are no judges, marshal or other civil officers?
[OPINION OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.]
Attorney General’s Office, November 20, 1860.
Sir:—
I have had the honor to receive your note of the 17th, and I now reply to the grave questions therein propounded as fully as the time allowed me will permit.
Within their respective spheres of action, the Federal Government and the government of a State, are both of them independent and supreme, but each is utterly powerless beyond the limits assigned to it by the Constitution. If Congress would attempt to change the law of descents, to make a new rule of personal succession, or to dissolve the family relations existing in any State, the act would be simply void; but not more void than would be a State law to prevent the recapture of fugitives from labor, to forbid the carrying of the mails, or to stop the collection of duties on imports. The will of a State, whether expressed in its constitution or laws, cannot, while it remains in the Confederacy, absolve her people from the duty of obeying the just and constitutional requirements of the Central Government. Nor can any act of the Central Government displace the jurisdiction of a State; because the laws of the United States are supreme and binding only so far as they are passed in pursuance of the Constitution. I do not say what might be effected by mere revolutionary force. I am speaking of legal and constitutional right.
This is the view always taken by the judiciary, and so universally adopted that the statement of it may seem commonplace. The Supreme Court of the United States has declared it in many cases. I need only refer you to the United States vs. Booth, where the present Chief Justice, expressing the unanimous opinion of himself and all his brethren, enunciated the doctrine in terms so clear and full that any further demonstration of it can scarcely be required.