When I was a college student I took courses in the St. George Tucker Hall. Tucker was the first American jurist to write a commentary on the U.S. Constitution (published in 1803). Tucker was a Revolutionary War hero, law instructor at William and Mary and a federal judge of Virginia. His most significant contribution was publishing an annotated edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries that “Americanized” Blackstone and was used by attorneys everywhere during the early days of our republic.

Last week our good friend Matt Chancey reminded us of St. George Tucker by forwarding the following quote:

Acts of Congress to be binding, must be made in pursuant to the Constitution; otherwise they are not laws; but mere nullity; or what is worse, acts of usurpation. The people are not only not bound to obey them, but the several departments and officers of the governments, both federal, and state, are bound by oath to oppose them; for, being bound by oath to support the constitution, they must violate that oath, whenever they give their sanction, by obedience, or otherwise, to an unconstitutional act of any department of the government. — St. George Tucker

Matt also wrote: This quote sheds a lot of light on the stand Roy Moore made in Alabama last year and shows the utter contempt our early American fathers had towards the notion that the federal government (especially the federal judiciary) is the sole determiner of the constitutionality of its own actions. Oh, for a handful of federal judges like Tucker today!