The slightest consideration of the nature, the character, the organization, and the powers of (federal) courts will dispel any fear of serious injury to the government at their hands. While by the Constitution the judicial department is recognized as one of the three great branches among which all the powers and functions of the government are distributed, it is inherently the weakest of them all. Dependent as its courts are for the enforcement of their judgments upon officers appointed by the executive and removable at pleasure, with no patronage and no control of the purse or the sword, their power and influence rest solely upon the public sense of the necessity for the existence of a tribunal to which all may appeal for the assertion and protection of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and by the laws of the land, and on the confidence reposed in the soundness of their decisions and the purity of their motives.[278] 114. To the question, “What is constitutional law in the United States?” the answer is, “Law as interpreted by the Supreme Court.” In other countries, and, generally speaking, in all countries at all times, until the institution of the political system of the United States,—the American system of government,—the supreme law of the land was the will of the executive (as in absolute monarchies), or the supreme will of the legislative (as in Great Britain). So long as the Supreme Court of the United States retains the confidence of the American people, the decisions of that Court will remain the authoritative exposition of American constitutional law. It follows that the normal execution of the judicial office in America determines the meaning of American constitutional law; or stated in other words, in the decisions of the Supreme Court there are found the formulation of the principles on which law in America is founded, and the application of these principles in testing, as issues arise, the acts of the legislative and the services of the administrative. Therefore it is to the interpretation thus given by the judiciary that we turn for an understanding of the exercise of offices,—legislative, executive, or judicial, delegated as powers by the sovereign, the people of the United States. Whatsoever is done, by either (so-called) department of government in conformity with this delegation of powers is constitutional; and whatsoever is done by either department in conflict with this delegation of powers is unconstitutional. Whether constitutional or unconstitutional it is the exalted and unique office of the Supreme Court to determine. This Court therefore touches American life at every point. Exhaustive examination of its interpretation principles, laws, judicial decisions, arguments of counsel, opinions of experts, writings of jurists, and the history of society,—and such examination alone, answers the question, “What is constitutional law in America?”