New York originally not only gave her legislature a share in judicial power, but her judges a share in that of legislation. Her Constitution of 1777 provided for a council of revision, consisting of the Governor, the Chancellor, and the judges of the Supreme Court, to whom all bills which passed the Senate and Assembly should be presented for consideration; and that if a majority of them should deem it improper that any such bill should become a law they should within ten days return it with their objections to the house in which it originated, which should enter the objections at large in its minutes, and proceed to reconsider the bill; and that it should not become a law unless re-passed by a vote of two-thirds of the members of each house. For forty years this remained the law, and the Council of Revision contained from time to time judges of great ability, Chancellor Kent being one. During this period 6,590 bills in all were passed. One hundred and twenty-eight of them were returned by the Council with their objections, and only seventeen of these received the two-thirds vote necessary to re-enact them.[Footnote: Poore, "Charters and Constitutions," II, 1332, 1333, note.] An obvious objection to this method of legislation is that the judges who, as members of a council of revision, find nothing objectionable in a bill presented for their scrutiny, must naturally have a certain pride of opinion to conquer before, should its constitutionality become afterward the subject of litigation before them, they could be in a frame of mind to render an unprejudiced judgment. One of the bills which came under the eye of Chancellor Kent as a member of the Council was afterward the source of controversy before him in court. He adhered to his original views, but was overruled by the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Marshall gave the opinion, and half apologetically alluded to this circumstance in these words: The State of New York maintains the constitutionality of these laws; and their legislature, their council of revision, and their judges, have repeatedly concurred in this opinion. It is supported by great names--by names which have all the titles to consideration that virtue, intelligence, and office can bestow. No tribunal can approach the decision of this question without feeling a just and real respect for that opinion which is sustained by such authority; but it is the province of this court, while it respects, not to bow to it implicitly; and the judges must exercise, in the examination of the subject, that understanding which Providence has bestowed upon them, with that independence which the people of the United States expect from this department of the government.[Footnote: Gibbons _v._ Ogden, 9 Wheaton's Reports, 1.]