In attempting, then, to summarize, the essentials of American constitutional law, it is from the decisions of the Supreme Court, as from no other source, one must derive any authoritative interpretation. 115. The three departments of government are distinct. The legislative shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative or judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the executive or legislative powers, or either of them; to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.[279] This principle of separation of powers, or offices, of government, is, for many purposes, not merely fundamental, but primary, in American constitutional law. A department of government can execute only the offices, or powers, delegated to it,[280] but the Legislature cannot impose other than judicial duties upon courts of law, or judicial duties upon other than the judiciary.[281] It follows from this principle that acts done by the legislative, or the judiciary, or the executive, in due course,—that is, according to rules of procedure and in the mode required by law, are official acts and are to be accredited as such.[282] Thus laws which appear on the face of them to be attested by the proper officials of the two Houses, duly signed by the Executive (or, passed over his vote as provided by the Constitution), and published by the official authorized to publish them are legislative acts, (laws) in a constitutional sense. So the records of courts of law made and kept in due procedure, and officially authenticated, are judicial records in a constitutional sense. 116. The original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court is co-extensive with the judicial power delegated by the Constitution.[283] Congress has power to give the inferior courts of the United States “original jurisdiction in any case to which the appellate jurisdiction extends.”[284] In all cases in which the Constitution, or a treaty, or an act of Congress is involved, the United States through some one of its courts has jurisdiction.[285] The exemption of an ambassador, public minister, or consul from suits in particular courts “is the privilege, not of the person who happens to fill the office, but of the State or government he represents.”[286] Consuls are oftentimes citizens, not aliens; any exemptions or privileges claimed by such a person accrue to him as consul being an alien, not as consul being also a citizen, of the United States. The admiralty jurisdiction of the United States extends over all water on which commerce is carried on between different States, or nations.[287] The principle of national commercial jurisdiction is essentially that of national political jurisdiction, a jurisdiction thus declared: