Justice Story was a Jeffersonian and a Democrat, appointed to the Court by President Madison.
The result was obvious until the Virginia Court of Appeals decided to defy the Supreme Court in a property case.
You would not find lower federal courts ruling on constitutional questions like this in the 18th and 19th centuries because Congress did not give the lower federal courts federal question jurisdiction until this century.
Justice Story grounded his views in the Martin case in the views of the Founders, whom he personally knew, having been appointed by Madison, the father of the Constitution.
Story said in Martin: "It is an historical fact, that at the time when the judiciary act was submitted to the deliberations of the first congress, composed, as it was not only of men of great learning and ability, but of men who acted a principal part in framing, supporting or opposing that constitution, the same exposition was explicitly declared and admitted by the friends and by the opponents of that sytem. It is an historical fact, that the supreme court of the United States have, from time to time, sustained this appellate jurisdiction, in a great variety of cases, brought from the tribunals of many of the most important states in the Union, and that no state tribunal has ever breathed a judicial doubt on the subject or declined to obey the mandate of the supreme court until the present occasion."