over the legislation cannot extend to all laws indiscriminately,
inasmuch as some of them can never give rise to that exact species
of contestation which is termed a lawsuit; and even when such a
contestation is possible, it may happen that no one cares to bring
it before a court of justice. The Americans have often felt this
disadvantage, but they have left the remedy incomplete, lest they should
give it an efficacy which might in some cases prove dangerous. Within
these limits the power vested in the American courts of justice of
pronouncing a statute to be unconstitutional forms one of the most
powerful barriers which has ever been devised against the tyranny of
political assemblies.

Other Powers Granted To American Judges

The United States all the citizens have the right of indicting
public functionaries before the ordinary tribunals--How they use this
right--Art. 75 of the French Constitution of the An VIII--The Americans
and the English cannot understand the purport of this clause.

It is perfectly natural that in a free country like America all the
citizens should have the right of indicting public functionaries before
the ordinary tribunals, and that all the judges should have the power of
punishing public offences. The right granted to the courts of justice of
judging the agents of the executive government, when they have violated
the laws, is so natural a one that it cannot be looked upon as an
extraordinary privilege. Nor do the springs of government appear to
me to be weakened in the United States by the custom which renders all
public officers responsible to the judges of the land. The Americans
seem, on the contrary, to have increased by this means that respect
which is due to the authorities, and at the same time to have rendered
those who are in power more scrupulous of offending public opinion. I
was struck by the small number of political trials which occur in
the United States, but I had no difficulty in accounting for this
circumstance. A lawsuit, of whatever nature it may be, is always a
difficult and expensive undertaking. It is easy to attack a public man
in a journal, but the motives which can warrant an action at law must be
serious. A solid ground of complaint must therefore exist to induce
an individual to prosecute a public officer, and public officers are
careful not to furnish these grounds of complaint when they are afraid
of being prosecuted.

This does not depend upon the republic