l
veto, they have largely failed to accomplish their purpose. This has
been due to the attitude of the courts, which have held that an opinion
thus given in compliance with a constitutional requirement is not
binding upon them when the question is raised again in the ordinary way
in the trial of a case.

CHAPTER VI

THE CHECKS AND BALANCES OF THE CONSTITUTION

Two features of this system, the difficulty of amendment and the
extraordinary powers of the judiciary have been discussed at some
length. Both, as we have seen, were designed to limit the power of the
popular majority. This purpose is no less evident when we view the
Constitution as a whole.

The members of the Federal Convention had little sympathy with the
democratic trend of the Revolutionary movement. It was rapidly carrying
the country, they thought, to anarchy and ruin. To guard against this
impending evil was the purpose of the Constitution which they framed. It
was their aim to eliminate what they conceived to be the new and false
and bring the government back to old and established principles which
the Revolutionary movement had for the time being discredited. They
believed in the theory of checks and balances in so far as the system
implied the limitation of the right of popular control, and made the
Constitution to this extent as complete an embodiment of the theory as
the circumstances of the time permitted.

In any evolutionary classification of governments the American system
occupies an intermediate position between the old type of absolute
monarchy on the one hand and thoroughgoing democracy on the other.
Following in a general way the course of political development in
England, we may say that there was an early stage in the growth of the
state when the power of the king was predominant. Neither the nobility
nor the common people exercised any effective control over him. He was
what we may call an absolute monarch. His power was unlimited in the
sense that there were no recognized checks imposed upon it. He was
irresponsible, since no one could call him to account for what he did.

The upper classes, however, were anxious to share with the king the
control of the state. Their efforts were directed first toward limiting
his power by making their own consent necessary before he could enact
any law, carry out any policy, or do any thing of a positive nature. But
even after they had been admitted to this share in the government the
ne