dge took issue
with this holding, saying: "It is one thing for Congress to withhold
jurisdiction. It is entirely another to confer it and direct that it be
exercised in a manner inconsistent with constitutional requirements or,
what in some instances may be the same thing, without regard to them.
Once it is held that Congress can require the courts criminally to
enforce unconstitutional laws or statutes, including regulations, or to
do so without regard for their validity, the way will have been found to
circumvent the supreme law and, what is more, to make the courts parties
to doing so. This Congress cannot do. There are limits to the judicial
power. Congress may impose others. And in some matters Congress or the
President has final say under the Constitution. But whenever the
judicial power is called into play, it is responsible directly to the
fundamental law and no other authority can intervene to force or
authorize the judicial body to disregard it. The problem therefore is
not solely one of individual right or due process of law. It is equally
one of the separation and independence of the powers of government and
of the constitutional integrity of the judicial process, more especially
in criminal trials."[113]

LEGISLATIVE COURTS: THE CANTER CASE

Quite distinct from special courts exercising the judicial power of the
United States, but at the same time a significant part of the federal
judiciary, are the legislative courts, so called because they are
created by Congress in pursuance of its general legislative powers. The
distinction between constitutional courts and legislative courts was
first made in American Insurance Company _v._ Canter,[114] which
involved the question of the admiralty jurisdiction of the territorial
court of Florida, the judges of which were limited to a four-year term
in office. Said Chief Justice Marshall for the Court: "These courts,
then, are not constitutional courts, in which the judicial power
conferred by the Constitution on the general government, can be
deposited. They are incapable of receiving it. They are legislative
courts, created in virtue of the general right of sovereignty which
exists in the government, or in virtue of that clause which enables
Congress to make all needful rules and regulations, respecting the
territory belonging to the United States. The jurisdiction with which
they are invested, is not a part of that judicial power which is defined
in the 3rd artic