But this point connected itself with the question, whether the executive should be surrounded by a council, and the latter proposition again involved the consideration of the precise relation of the executive to the legislative power. That a negative of some kind upon the acts of the legislature was essential to the independence of the executive, was a truth in political science not likely to escape the attention of many of the members of the Convention. Whether it should be a qualified or an absolute negative was the real, and almost the sole question; for although there were some who held the opinion that no such power ought to be given, it was evident from the first that its necessity was well understood by the larger part of the assembly. In the first discussion of this subject, the negative was generally regarded as a means of defence against encroachments of the legislature on the rights and powers of the other departments. It was supposed that, although the boundaries of the legislative authority might be marked out in the Constitution, the executive would need some check against unconstitutional interference with its own prerogatives; and that, as the judicial department might be exposed to the same dangers, the power of resisting these also could be best exercised by the executive. But an absolute negative for any purpose was favored by only a very few of the members, and the proposition first adopted was to give the executive alone a revisionary check upon legislation, which should not be absolute if it were afterwards overruled by two thirds of each branch of the legislature.[31] But inasmuch as this provision would leave the precise purposes of the check undetermined, and in order, as it would seem, to subject the whole of the legislative acts to revision and control by the executive, some of the members desired that the judiciary, or a convenient number of the judges, might be added to the executive as a council of revision. Among these persons were Mr. Madison and Mr. Wilson. The former expressed a very decided opinion, that, whether the object of a revisionary power was to restrain the encroachments of the legislature on the other departments, or on the rights of the people at large, or to prevent the passage of laws unwise in principle or incorrect in form, there would be great utility in annexing the wisdom and weight of the judiciary to the executive. But this proposition was rejected by a large majority of the States, and the power was left by the committee as it had been settled by their former decision. These proceedings, however, do not furnish any decisive evidence of the nature and purpose of the revisionary check.