ts and cases as they are brought by others before
it. It can do nothing for itself. It must do everything for others. It
must obey the laws, and if it corruptly administers them it is subjected
to the power of impeachment. On the other hand, the legislative power
except in the few cases of constitutional prohibition, is unlimited. It
is forever varying its means and its ends. It governs the institutions
and laws and public policy of the country. It regulates all its vast
interests. It disposes of all its property. Look but at the exercise
of two or three branches of its ordinary powers. It levies all taxes;
it directs and appropriates all supplies; it gives the rules for the
descent, distribution, and devises of all property held by individuals;
it controls the sources and the resources of wealth; it changes at its
will the whole fabric of the laws; it molds at its pleasure almost all
the institutions which give strength and comfort and dignity to society.

In the next place, it is the direct visible representative of the will
of the people in all the changes of times and circumstances. It has the
pride as well as the power of numbers. It is easily moved and steadily
moved by the strong impulses of popular feeling and popular odium. It
obeys without reluctance the wishes and the will of the majority for the
time being. The path to public favor lies open by such obedience, and it
finds not only support but impunity in whatever measures the majority
advises, even though they transcend the constitutional limits. It has no
motive, therefore, to be jealous or scrupulous in its own use of power;
and it finds its ambition stimulated and its arm strengthened by the
countenance and the courage of numbers. These views are not alone those
of men who look with apprehension upon the fate of republics, but they
are also freely admitted by some of the strongest advocates for popular
rights and the permanency of republican institutions. * * *

* * * * *

* * * Each department should have a will of its own. * * * Each should
have its own independence secured beyond the power of being taken away
by either or both of the others. But at the same time the relations of
each to the other should be so strong that there should be a mutual
interest to sustain and protect each other. There should not only be
constitutional means, but personal motive