hree departments, co-ordinate and independent, that they might check
and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one
of them alone, the right to prescribe rules for the government of the
others, and to that one too, which is unelected by, and independent of
the nation. For experience has already shown that the impeachment it
has provided is not even a scare-crow; that such opinions as the one
you combat, sent cautiously out, as you observe also, by detachment, not
belonging to the case often, but sought for out of it, as if to rally
the public opinion beforehand to their views, and to indicate the line
they are to walk in, have been so quietly passed over as never to have
excited animadversion, even in a speech of any one of the body entrusted
with impeachment. The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing
of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape
into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an axiom of
eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is
independent, is absolute also; in theory only, at first, while the
spirit of the people is up, but in practice, as fast as that relaxes.
Independence can be trusted no where but with the people in mass. They
are inherently independent of all but moral law. My construction of
the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each
department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to
decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases
submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately
and without appeal. I will explain myself by examples, which, having
occurred while I was in office, are better known to me, and the
principles which governed them.

A legislature had passed the sedition-law. The federal courts
had subjected certain individuals to its penalties, of fine and
imprisonment. On coming into office, I released these individuals by the
power of pardon committed to executive discretion, which could never be
more properly exercised than where citizens were suffering without the
authority of law, or, which was equivalent, under a law unauthorized
by the constitution, and therefore null. In the case of Marbury and
Madison, the federal judges declared that commissions, signed and sealed
by the President, were valid, although not delivered. I deemed delivery
essential to complete a deed, which, as long as it remai