Its legislative powers were to embrace certain objects, to which the legislative powers of the separate States might be incompetent, or where their exercise might be injurious to the national interests;[51] and it was moreover to have a certain restraining authority over the legislation of the States. This plan necessarily supposed that the residue of the sovereignty and legislative power of the States would remain in them after these objects had been provided for; and it therefore contemplated a system of government, in which the individual citizen might be acted upon by two separate and distinct legislative authorities. But by providing that the legislative power of the national government should be derived from the people inhabiting the several States, and by creating an executive and a judiciary with an authority commensurate with that of the legislature, it sought to make, and did theoretically make, the national government, in its proper sphere, supreme over the governments of the States. With respect to the element of stability, as depending on the length of the tenure of office, this system was far in advance of any of the republican governments then existing in America; for it contemplated that the members of one branch of the legislature should be elected for three, and those of the other branch, and the executive, for seven years. If we compare it with the Confederation, which it was designed to supersede, we find greatly enlarged powers, somewhat vaguely defined; the addition of distinct and regular departments, accurately traced; and a totally different basis for the authority and origin of the government itself.