unconstitutional, which had been approved by one of his predecessors, but which he, notwithstanding, conscientiously believed to be unconstitutional, and for withholding the power of the executive from the execution of any such act. Everybody knows that an act which is contrary to the Constitution is a nullity, although it may have passed according to the forms of the Constitution. That instrument creates several departments, whose duty it may become to act upon such a bill, in the performance of their respective functions. The theory of the Constitution is that these departments are coördinate and independent of each other, and that when they act in their appropriate spheres they each have a right, and it is the duty of each to judge for themselves in respect to the authority and requirements of the Constitution, without being controlled or interfered with by their co-departments, and are each responsible to the people alone who made them for the manner in which they discharge their respective duties in that regard. It is not therefore to be presumed that that instrument, after making it the President's especial duty to take an oath to preserve and uphold the Constitution and prevent its violation, intended to deny to him the right to withhold his assent from a measure which he might conscientiously believe would have that effect, and to impose upon him the necessity of outraging his conscience, by making himself a party to such a violation. The Constitution, which was framed by great men, the form of which has been so much and so justly admired, is not so imperfect nor subject to such a reproach. The matter does not necessarily end with a refusal on the part of the executive to do an act which he believes Congress had no right, under the Constitution, to require his department to perform. Although the President, representing one of the three great departments of the Government, possesses in this respect a right which neither the citizen nor any other officer or officers of the Government, not having the control of such a department, can exercise, yet if he allows himself to be governed by unworthy motives he is liable to impeachment and expulsion from office. It is in this way, or by his removal by the people, that the wrong he does to the public is redressed. But this is not all. If the act has been passed according to the forms of the Constitution, and is judged to be constitutional by the judicial department of the Federal Government, it is obligatory upon the citizens, binds and controls their private rights and personal interests, and can be carried into effect in respect to those by the judiciary, which also judges for itself regarding the constitutionality of such law. It is the department by which laws, affecting as well the private rights of the citizen as those of the States, which can be made the subjects of litigation, are carried into effect. It has ample power conferred upon it to cause its judgments and decrees to be executed.