The judicial power of the Federal Government, according to the description here given of the binding force, the finality and efficiency of its decisions upon the parties and their rights in all cases which may be brought before it, answers all the purposes of its institution. Was it the intention of the framers of the Constitution that it should be clothed with other powers, and if so, what are they? The duties imposed on the executive and legislative departments are of higher importance than those of the judiciary, in proportion as the interests of the nation are of more consequence than the separate interests of individuals and minor associations. They include the question of peace or of war, and the maintenance of the latter, international obligations in the forms of treaties, their construction and execution, the regulation of foreign commerce and commerce among the States, the regulation of the currency, the establishment of a mint, the assessment and collection of the national revenue, the raising, regulating, and command of an army and navy, the establishment of a general and of particular post-offices, the regulation and protection of the Indian tribes, and many other duties which it is unnecessary to specify. In none of these is it contemplated by the Constitution that the judicial power shall take a part. The powers and duties of the other departments upon these subjects are to some extent specified in the Constitution, and the residue are left to the direction of the legislature which acts, in respect to them, through the Executive as the department especially charged with the execution of the laws. In the performance of their high duties these departments are, at almost every step, met by constitutional questions. The Houses of the legislature, in every law or resolution that they pass, have to consider whether it is authorized by the Constitution to which they have sworn to conform, and the President and Senate, when they make a treaty, are bound to consider and decide the same question. The President, as the sole depositary of the executive power, is under a similar obligation. His first inquiry is, whether the Constitution authorizes him to apply the power of his department to the execution of the business before him, or, if it is one of the numerous functions which the legislature is in the constant habit of calling upon him to perform, has the legislature power under the Constitution to direct the thing to be done, and can he do it consistently with his oath to preserve and uphold that instrument?