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Show given subject matter may be made until further Congressional action has been substituted for the repealed consent act," Enforcement Another question raised in connection with compacts is whether or not they can be enforced. Enforcement, of course, is a matter to be left to the courts themselves. However, there is no case on record in which any state of tho Union has refused to obey the decision of the Supreme Court in an inter- state suit. In view of this fact, it would seem unlikely that difficulty in their enforcement would ever be encountered. This question was brought up in Virginia v. lYest Virginia, 2I4.6 U. S. 5&5> where the Court declared* The vesting in Congress of complete power to control agreements between states, that is, to authorize them when deemed advisable and to refuse to sanction them when disapproved, clearly rested upon the conception that Congress, as the repository not only of legislative power but of primary authority to maintain armies and declare war, speaking for all the states and for their protection, was concerned with such agreements, and therefore was virtually endowed with the ultimate power of final agreement which was withdrawn from state authority and brought within the Federal power. It follows as a necessary implication that the power of Congress to refuse or to assent to a contract between states carried with it the right, if the contract was assented to and hence became operative by the will of Congress, to. see to its enforcement. This must be the case unless it can be said that the duty of exacting the carrying out of tho contract is not, within the principle of McCulloch v. Maryland, I4. Wheaton J>l6, relevant to the power to determine whether the contract should be made • But the one is so relevant to the other as to leave no room for dispute to the contrary* T he C ourt c ont inue d: • • . by the very fact that the national power is paramount in the area over which it extends, the lawful exertion of its authority by Congress to compel compliance with the obligation resulting from the contract between the two states which it approved is not circum- scribed by the powers reserved to the states." • • Obviously, if it be conceded that no power obtains to enforce as against a state its duty under the Constitution in one respect, and to prevent it from doing wrong to another state, it would follow that the same principle would have to be applied to wrongs done by other states, and thus the government under the Constitution would be not an indissoluble union of indestrictible states, but a government composed of states each having the potency with impunity to wrong "or degrade another,-- a result which would inevitably lead to a destruction of the union between them. The substance of this statement is that Congress, having been given. |
