Is it not surprising that under a Constitution so constructed, exhibiting on its face such features, the idea should ever have been advanced that it was to the judicial power of the Government that its framers looked for the preservation of that sacred instrument? So far as it concerns the private rights of citizens and foreigners in questions of _meum and tuum_, growing out of the laws and Constitution of the United States, or controversies regarding the separate and special interests of contending States, or of the United States, and in respect to the rights of foreign ministers and consuls, it was intended to be supreme and so made, nor has its supremacy in all these respects ever been questioned. But it seems very absurd to suppose that it was intended to oblige the President of the United States,--the officer clothed with the whole executive power of the Government; the only officer, except the Vice-President, who is chosen by the whole people of the United States; the champion, designated by the Constitution itself to "preserve, protect, and defend" it in the performance of the executive duties committed to his charge,--duties affecting what Hamilton happily describes as "the general liberty of the people," to distinguish it from affairs of _meum and tuum_,--to keep his eye upon the Supreme Court calendar, and to gather from its decisions in respect to the private rights of parties litigant the measure of his constitutional powers, and to stop or go on in the execution of the important national offices assigned to his department as its judgments may be deemed to authorize or forbid his further proceeding. I can easily understand why a class of men, born with certain dispositions and trained to corresponding opinions, should desire such a construction of the Federal Constitution; but in the face of facts and considerations like these, I can find no explanation of the boldness with which so groundless a pretension has been advanced, other than in the recklessness by which the spirit of political encroachment is and will be characterized as long as it finds facilities for its gratification in the weakness or the passions of mankind. The deeper the subject is looked into, the more apparent to all _bonâ fide_ searchers for truth will become the fallacy of the principle which claims for the Supreme Court a controlling power over the other departments in respect to constitutional questions. Inquirers of this description cannot fail to appreciate the difficulty, nay the impossibility of reconciling Mr. Webster's unreserved admission of the President's "undoubted right in the exercise of his functions, when a bill is presented for his approval, to consider in all cases whether such a bill be compatible with the Constitution, and whether he can approve it, consistently with his oath of office," and to approve, or refuse to approve according to the result, with his severe denunciation of him for regarding an act as