By this pretension the Supreme Court is converted into a moot-court to sit in judgment on Acts of Congress, and the President becomes what, in the time of Charles the Second, Lord Keeper Guilford said a good lawyer must be, “a put-case.”[208] Even assuming, against evidence, that such was his purpose, it is hard to treat it without reprobation. The Supreme Court is not arbiter of Acts of Congress. If this pretension ever found favor, it was from the partisans of Slavery and State Rights, who, assured of the sympathy of the Court, sought in this way to complete an unjust triumph. The power claimed is tribunitial in character, being nothing less than a veto. Its nearest parallel in history is in the ancient Justicia of Aragon, who could set aside even royal ordinances as unconstitutional. The National Constitution leaves no doubt as to the proper functions of the Supreme Court. It may hear and determine “all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made under their authority”; but this is all. Its business is to decide “cases,”--not to sit in judgment on Acts of Congress and issue its tribunitial veto. If a “case” arises where a statute is said to clash with the National Constitution, it must be decided as any other case of conflict of laws. But nothing within the just powers of the Court can touch an Act of Congress, except incidentally, and then its judgment is binding only on the parties. The incidental reason assigned--as, for instance, that a statute is unconstitutional--does not bind anybody, not even the parties or the Court itself. Of course such incidental reason cannot bind Congress. On the evidence it is clear enough that the President had no honest purpose to make a case for the Supreme Court. He may have talked about it, but he was never in earnest. When asked by General Sherman “why lawyers could not make a case,” he said, in reply, “that it was found impossible, or a case could not be made up.” And so at each stage we find him practically discarding the idea. He issues the order of removal. Mr. Stanton disobeys. Here was exactly his opportunity. Instead of making the case by commencing the proper process, he tells Adjutant-General Thomas to “go on and take possession of the office”; and then, putting an end to this whole pretension of a case for the Court, he proceeds to treat the latter in every respect, whether of law or fact, as Secretary, welcomes him to his Cabinet, invites him to present the business of his Department, and, so far from taking advantage of the opportunity he had professed to desire, denies its existence. How could he inquire by what authority Mr. Stanton assumed to hold the office of Secretary of War, when he denied, in fact, that he was holding it?