Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Georgia; and the preference which has been given to those models is
highly to be commended.

It is not true, in the second place, that the Parliament of Great
Britain, or the legislatures of the particular States, can rectify the
exceptionable decisions of their respective courts, in any other sense
than might be done by a future legislature of the United States. The
theory, neither of the British, nor the State constitutions, authorizes
the revisal of a judicial sentence by a legislative act. Nor is there
any thing in the proposed Constitution, more than in either of them,
by which it is forbidden. In the former, as well as in the latter, the
impropriety of the thing, on the general principles of law and reason,
is the sole obstacle. A legislature, without exceeding its province,
cannot reverse a determination once made in a particular case; though it
may prescribe a new rule for future cases. This is the principle, and it
applies in all its consequences, exactly in the same manner and extent,
to the State governments, as to the national government now under
consideration. Not the least difference can be pointed out in any view
of the subject.

It may in the last place be observed that the supposed danger of
judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority, which has been
upon many occasions reiterated, is in reality a phantom. Particular
misconstructions and contraventions of the will of the legislature may
now and then happen; but they can never be so extensive as to amount to
an inconvenience, or in any sensible degree to affect the order of the
political system. This may be inferred with certainty, from the general
nature of the judicial power, from the objects to which it relates, from
the manner in which it is exercised, from its comparative weakness, and
from its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force. And the
inference is greatly fortified by the consideration of the important
constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments in one
part of the legislative body, and of determining upon them in the other,
would give to that body upon the members of the judicial department.
This is alone a complete security. There never can be danger that the
judges, by a series of deliberate usurpations on the authority of the
legislature, would hazard the united resentment of the body intrusted
with it, while this